Friends and Friendship

The Biblical text declares, “It is not good for Man to be alone.”  What’s the problem with being alone?  I know introverts who love to be alone, who tell me they do not need to be around other people to survive and thrive.  Alone can be peaceful.  Alone means no one is aggravating or exasperating you.  Alone declares, I am self-sufficient.  Alone is solitude without loneliness.  Alone has its place.  I respect alone.

So, why do the scriptures warn us against being alone?  Because when you are alone, you can deceive yourself.  You can worry about things when worrying will not help.  You can have all sorts of unnecessary anxiety.  You can convince yourself of almost anything.  You can make bad decisions.  You can think you are right when you are wrong. You can drive yourself crazy.

I work hard, sometimes too hard, to maintain my friendships.  My close friends are what keep me sane.  My friends listen to my ramblings, my “serious” concerns, my ridiculous worries, and are honest enough to tell me where I’m full of it, where I'm wrong, where I am sounding crazy.  Left to myself and only myself, I find it too easy to go to a bad spiral place in my mind. 

Having friends takes me away and off myself.  Asking how things are with them, listening to their struggles, sharing their pain and their good fortune rescues me from the introspective sickness of, “I, me mine.” 

The human brain is agile but also fragile.  When we are not getting enough sleep; when we are not eating well, when we are overstressed, we are not thinking well.  I wish for you a friend who will walk through your craziness with you, someone who will cry and laugh with you, someone who knows you better than you know yourself.

Harold Kushner says it well: “Human beings are God’s language.” 

A variant of the old poster saying is also true,

“Friends are people who know everything about you and still stay with you.”  

"It is not good for Man to be alone."