Conversation: talk between two or more people in which thoughts, feelings, and ideas are expressed, questions are asked and answered, or news and information is exchanged (Cambridge Dictionary)
I first met him about two decades ago. I can’t say we were close friends, but we were both in church ministry and we were friendly acquaintances. And then we lost touch mainly because of geography. I had relocated to Singapore and he was still in Malaysia. We kept “in touch” by observing each other’s lives on Facebook but we all know that the life we show on Facebook is but a glimpse of our actual lives and heavily curated. Last week we had a long chat over WhatsApp. We shared in depth about some deep stuff that was going on in our lives. If we were not friends before, we are friends now. If the first building block of friendship is shared meals, the next, and the most important, is sharing conversations.
Justin Whitmel Earley writes:
Without the work of real conversation where your deepest hopes are admitted and your greatest secrets are discovered, relationships remain the mere common interest of acquaintances.
Vulnerability and time turn people who have a relationship into people who have a friendship. That’s what friendship is: vulnerability across time. The practice of conversation is the basis of friendship because it’s in conversation that we become exposed to each other. (The Common Rule [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2019], 98.)
Friendship is formed when people get to know each other, when we exchange the stories that make up our lives. Daniel Taylor reminds us that:
You are your stories. You are the product of all the stories you have heard and lived . . . (Tell Me A Story [St. Paul, MN: Bog Walk Press 2001], 1.)
Our stories tell us (and our friends) who we are, why we are here, and what we are to do. (Tell Me A Story, 3.)
If we are serious about forging a friendship we have to invest time for face-to-face conversations where we exchange the stories that define us. This would include the stories that make up our lives at present and, eventually, the critical stories that have shaped our lives. In 1 Corinthians 13:12, Paul writes:
For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. (NIV)
He is writing here about our relationship with God, that the culmination of our journey with Christ is a time when we “shall know fully, even as [we] are fully known.” This too is the progress of a friendship between two human beings where the friends will grow in their knowledge of each other.
We must remember that Jesus understands friendship as one where the friends are willing to lay down their lives for each other.
My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. (John 15:12–13 NIV)
There are many definitions of friendship but if we want to pursue friendship as Jesus defines it, it is a commitment to love a friend with one’s life, and love presupposes knowledge. I cannot love you, not really, if I do not know you. And it will also be hard to receive love if we do not know ourselves.
The need to know each other’s stories is imperative because when we are building a friendship with a person, we are not building a relationship with an idea or an abstraction. We are seeking to build a relationship with a specific individual. And we grow in our knowledge of this individual when we know the stories that shape his or her life.
One of the advantages of story knowledge is its concreteness and specificity. Stories give us individualized people in specific times and places doing actual things. (Tell Me A Story, 30.)
But conversation is not as easy as it sounds. It requires that I progressively show you what is in my heart and that requires me to be vulnerable. And that is frightening.
Much of friendship comes from admitting the things that make you seem fragile when spoken out loud. And this is why friendship is so hard. Vulnerability is risky. . . (The Common Rule, 100.)
But there is no other road to building a friendship. Friends need to help each other understand who they are, both the good and especially the bad. If we are committed to building friendships, we must find the courage to take the risk of vulnerable conversations. This will take time. It also helps to know that we already have a Friend who knows us completely and accepts us and loves us. Next week, we will look at the components of conversations — listening and sharing. For now, let us meet for meals and share our lives as we share food.