shameless friendship

One of my favourite things about Jesus Christ is the way he made friends. 

One of my favourite things about being a disciple of this socially unconventional chap is that I get to follow his lead.  There is an unrivaled simplistic delight in inventing a friendship with someone who isn't expecting it.  Even better when you're not expecting it either.

Ruthi, I'm gonna reference the quote you last posted here, and say that I think it's super tragic that our insecurities and perceived "incompleteness" or "voids" so often cripple or stunt us socially.  I think this is one of the enemy's favourite devices for getting us to prevent God's will from happening and his blessings from flowing, most especially within the community/family.  I was sooo shy when I was little, and I remember just literally being afraid of making friends with people, afraid of failing them or letting them down.  I hate that we, even as grown-ups, and even as those who claim to be being sanctified in Christ, are still so poisoned by the cultural conditioning that keeps us from honest and unashamed relationships where God's will is the unified focus, and not our own acceptance or affirmation. 

"He must increase; I must decrease." 

One of my best treasures in this life has been my bizarre love of the awkward -- I literally bask in socially awkward moments, and welcome and encourage (and very often instigate) peculiar instances that I like to think momentarily challenge others' perceptions of the "socially acceptable."  I hope at the end of every day that someone I encountered -- even a stranger -- will have had to endure a moment wherein they questioned a social norm or felt somehow freed by having experienced the unusual.  And Logan, I don't mean this in the way that you like to do to me, where you straight-up try to embarrass someone by making them out to be a pedophile or something (ha-ha..) :P  .. but I mean in nice, swell ways.  Like when someone says or does something super embarrassing in front of you, help them enjoy it like you both just watched Jim Carrey do it on The Truman Show, or find the Truth in it and be humbled together in laughter over your silly human state.  Even just a kind smile or a mischeivous wink is a glimpse of freedom to a worried heart, and a taste of freedom for a gracious heart.  But awkwardness is not just meant to be lovingly stemmed -- oh no -- it is meant to be lovingly bestowed as well!  hahah ;D 

One of my favourite friendships began just like this:

jen & shaina walking by library in empty A-building, random guy in rad brown hat walking towards them, all systems go for a typical pedestrian pass
shaina: *makes direct eye contact with unwitting stranger, points at his head approvingly*  "brown hat" 
jen: *without skipping a beat, in the style of a younger brother at the mall* "she likes you."
random guy in rad brown hat: *doubly confused expression that reads "simultaneously flattered on separate levels while also unsure whether to assume he's been made fun of, complimented, or handed the key to an equally unexpecting girl's heart compliments of her dink of a best friend"*

That moment of nonsense was the foundation of a friendship between myself and Aaron that will outlive us both.  And he's so shy that I'm not sure we ever would've become friends if I hadn't felt uninhibitably compelled to state my enjoyment of his hat in the most awkward way possible.  

I realize this isn't a super profound example, but it's one of my favourites nonetheless.  I think we're all going along in our daily lives, feeling like weenies and wondering if anything we're doing or saying is mattering to anyone or accomplishing anything, and I think we're all so often caught up in that end of things that we're missing out on a lot of opportunities to throw God's joyful freedom from these fetters in the paths of others when they're least expecting it.  I was hosting a performance evening/open mic last winter with this fellow Taylor, who had at one point in the proceedings mysteriously produced a pot of glitter -- it was just so bizarre that he casually had a pot of glitter on him, that my imagination was spurred into a microphone musing between acts that it would be fun to just carry glitter around..and randomly shower people with it (my exact words may have been "throw it in people's faces")..or like if you passed a surly person at the grocery store, to just toss a fistfull back over your shoulder..  I felt like it would just be so ludicrous and magical that it would really help other people through the monotony or frustration of daily life. (for a second anyways, till they realized they looked like they just survived a Lady Gaga holocaust and would have to spend a week de-glittering)   Anyways, I mention this, because a) it makes me laugh to think of pockets full of secret glitter waiting to insta-snowglobe unsuspecting sour old ladies, and more importantly, b) it's my clever way of parallelling my point with over-the-top imagery.  

What would Jesus think about me comparing his calling of the twelve or his conversation with the woman at the well to throwing glitter in people's faces?  I'm not sure.  But I feel like the levels of "socially unacceptable" and "super cool" inherent in each are working in my favour.  Also, I'm of course not really talking about whipping glitter in someone's eyes, I'm talking about setting yourself aside in the simple moments that you are encountering your brothers and sisters (and utter strangers in case you don't count them among the siblings)(which you should, shame on you), and being a vessel, a channel, for God's unusual/socially awkward/embarrassingly honest/playground-simple friendship to pour generously and unexpectedly through.

Therefore let us be conscious -- how many times in each of our days do we forego opportunities to bear up, or affirm, or invite those around us?  How many life-altering friendships are we missing out on by telling ourselves it's awkward/impossible/impractical/embarrassing?  And how many times are we casting off our silly shame and loving each other unexpectedly on the prompting of a God we are listening to?  We are all geeky failures who don't know what to say and who are absolutely right in assuming we don't deserve the love and attention of each other...so at least we have that in common.  Sounds like fertile friendship soil to me.

<3