Dan J. Brennan

Flawed Friendships

djchuang in a brief post, "God seems to use flawed people" begins:

"I’d always been a little suspicious of people who seem to have it all together, hiding their flaws, and appearing strong and confident too often.

I have to admit, I probably can’t tell the difference between a confident person and an over-confident person, and there are people who are more self-assured and confident.

I think what I’d like to see is that people admit their mistakes, acknowledge their shortcomings and flaws, at least once in a while.  Of course I wouldn’t want everyone walking around like Droopy, Mopey, or Eeyore."

Dan says, "Amen."

Forgiveness, Friendship, and Sentimentality

I love this contrast of Christian friendship and the friendships in the world from Rodney Clapp.  Unfortunately, there are Christians who practice functional friendships:

"Forgiveness, in turn, emboldens us to practice a friendship that will sometimes faithfully wound and not settle for sentimentality.  Indeed, a world speaking only the managerial language of friendship is especially prone to sentimentality about friendship, since it can conceive of friendship only as functional and finally superficial.  Ironically, it finds friendship simultaneously more burdernsome, and more frivolous, more trivial.  Having instrumentalized friendship, it has no use for friendships that no longer provide a steady supply of warm fuzzies.  By contrast, the centrality of forgiveness to the cruciform culture of friendship reveals sentimental friendship for the counterfeit it is.  The promise of Christian friendship is not that it will always be easy or enjoyable but that it will never be less than friendship."

A Peculiar People

 

Jesus and Peter: The Drama of Friendship

"You are my friends if you do what I command you.  No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you" (John 15:14-15).

"And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him, saying, 'Far be it from you, Lord!  This shall never happen you.  But he turned and said to Peter, 'Get behind me, Satan!  You are a hindrance to me.  For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on thhings of man" (Matt. 16: 22-23).

"Then Peter came up and said to him, 'Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I will forgive him?  As many as seven times?  Jesus said to him, 'I do not say seven times, but seventy times seven" (Matt. 18:21-22).

"Simon, Simon, behold, Satan demanded to have you, that he might sift you like wheat, but I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail.  And when you have turned again, strengthen your brothers.  Peter said to him, 'Lord, I am ready to go with you both to prison and to death.  Jesus said, 'I will tell you, Peter, the rooster will not crow this day, until you deny three times that you know me" (Luke 22:31-34).

"And he came and found them sleeping, and he said to Peter, 'Simon, are you asleep?  Could you not watch one hour?  Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation.  The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak" (Mark 14:36).

"And immediately the rooster crowed a second time.  And Peter remembered how Jesus had said to him, 'Before the rooster crows twice, you will deny me three times.'  And he broke down and wept" (Mark 14:72).

"He said to him a third time, 'Simon, son of John, do you love me?'  Peter was grieved because he said to him the third time, 'Do you love me?' and he said to him, 'Lord, you know everything; you know that I love you.'  Jesus said to him, "Feed my sheep" (John 21:17).

Finding Safe Friends 3

When I met Jennifer online, (this is another layer to our story) I had been about three years of wrestling with deep self-contempt from a different place.  When we first started to converse, I shared with Jennifer I thought I was a "wounded healer."  I knew I had been touched by Jesus and Jesus had shown me his love in such a way that self-contempt was not as central in my imagination as it had been.  I couldn't say I was totally free of self-contempt.  I can't even say that today.  Although its been a while, I can "spiral" down into a vortex of self-contempt from time to time.  That's never pretty.  These days I would say self-contempt is background noise for me or "white" noise. 

Something to Think About: Boundaries and Detached Forgiveness

I had these two quotes from Dan Allender in a class in which I encouraged a forgiveness beyond a mere "detached" forgiveness:

“Love has boundaries, but often boundary setting is a means of fleeing the requirements of love…The common route of self-discovery, self-expression, and self-protection seems reasonable, but the by-products are often not true strength, tenderness, or faithfulness.” 

We cannot love if we distance ourselves or overlook the damage of another’s sin; neither can we love if we fail to move into another’s world to offer a taste of life.” Dan Allender

Finding a Story Worth Handing On

Here is a chapter summary from Paul Waddell's newest book, Happiness and the Christian Moral Life. 

This book, is an accessible, thoughtful book from a deep Catholic thinker on ethics.  It's not your ordinary introduction to ethics textbook.  I can't recommend this book enough for your consideration.

"Christians believe that in Jesus they have found a story worth handing on and remembering.  It is a story that says joy and confidence are more in step with reality than depression and despair, that goodness is the power that sustains the world, and that love offered to anybody, even an enemy, is always the right way to go.  It's a story that gives us freedom to fail because God who brought us to life in the beginning will do so again and again." 

Ain't that one awesome summary of the Christian story?

This is one helluva story of the new life we have in Christ! :-)

Happiness, Friendship and Christian Ethics 2

When I went to the concurrent session on the demand of friendship, I was sort of expecting something along the lines of the excerpt from below from Wadell's book.  Instead, I was disappointed that the lecture was something a bit different.  Below is a piece from Wadell's second chapter.  Something to think about concerning friendship and the moral life--this is where friendship is taken as a path of discipleship:

Separating abusive relationships from struggling marriages

"People, especially women suffering from abuse, hold together relationships and marriages that should be separated.  At the same time, marriages are dissolved that should have been sustained.  This judgment, 'should have been sustained,' implies a commitment to, not simply a marriage as a set of practices that carry basic goods of human life.  A common contributing factor to divorce is that divorce itself is seen as a solution to disagreements and the logical resolution to static or weakened interpersonal communications.  In other words, disagreements, expressions of anger, and dissatisfaction with a husband's or wife's role in the family should not undermine marriage.  In fact, learning to confront one's spouse, resolve conflicts, and overcome dissatisfaction foster marital love.  Not anger but disdain, not conflict but coercion, and not confrontation but withdrawal, bring a bad end to married life."

Sex and Love in the Home

Becoming Friends: Not Letting Hurt Have the Final Word

This is Paul Wadell's last chapter.

It's a good one. 

He challenges us to not let hurt have the final relational say-so in friendships.

"If we are honest, we know that holding on to a hurt is much easier than growing beyond it.  The hurts and disappointments in our lives can give us a ready excuse not to be responsible.  Instead of moving forward, we settle into those hurts and let them define our lives....Forgiveness can free us from the wounds, hurts, and brokenness that are so debilitating for friendships, but only if we are willing to move beyond them by offering to our friends the forgiveness we ourselves so often need."

Friendship and Forgiveness 2

"Friendship is the place where forgiveness begins" states John Swinton.  "We practice forgiveness with and toward our friends." 

Are you in friendships where you've had to forgive?  Or have you just walked away?  Or, you keep some great distance from a friend who hurt you or became negative towards you?  "Forgiveness is not easy" says Swinton.  He's writing a powerful argument for the practice of "Christ-shaped friendship" to be the Christian response towards what theologians call theodicy.  Peppered throughout the book are some extreme examples of unforgivable behavior.  It makes much sense to me that Christian friendship is the most credible response, the most pastoral response to the problem of evil.