The Quest for Safety Goggle Friendship

A couple of days ago, if you'd peeked in my window you would have found me sitting on the couch in my living room weeping after reading a story, shared by Shauna Niequist in her book, Bread and Wine.  Shauna had been struggling with infertility and it seemed that everyone around her was pregnant.  She wanted to be happy for her pregnant friends , and most of the time she was, but somewhere inside her the desperation increased and the sorrow deepened with each new pregnancy announcement.  Finally she felt like she couldn’t take it any more and she posted about her feelings on her blog in a moment of complete transparency.  Soon after that she received a call from a friend, a newly pregnant friend, saying she was going to be in town and wanted to get together.  Shauna cringed, hoping that her friend hadn’t read her blog post. 

When they met at the restaurant, Shauna’s friend handed her a gift and told her that she had, indeed, read the blog post.  *cringe*  She said that she understood that this was the point in a friendship where many friends would have to walk away from each other for awhile, because the pain and the awkwardness would be too great.  She explained, however, that she felt that the two of them could do better than that.  Shauna opened the gift and found two pairs of safety goggles.  In her blog post she had admitted telling her husband that if she didn’t get pregnant that very month, she was going to break something glass just to feel it shatter in her hands.  That day in the restaurant, her friend told her, “If you feel like shattering something, I’ll be right there with you.  We’ll put on our safety goggles.  I’ll help you break something and then I’ll help you clean it up.  You’ve been celebrating with me and I’ll be there to grieve with you.  We can do this together.”

Even now, tears sting my eyes as I imagine that moment and as I picture the friends that God has brought into my life in the past who would do the same for me, who feel the same way about me. 

Here’s the rub.  With Facebook and Twitter and Instagram and Pinterest, it is more common for people to compete with friends, to feel disconnected from another’s pain or joy, or to assume we know what is going on with someone without ever talking with them or looking in their eyes.  Upper-division, safety-goggle-moment friendship is uncommon.  It involves phone calls, coffee dates, walks, snail mail, impromptu texts, it involves sacrifice and awareness.  It requires emotional commitment, not just an emotional attachment.  I long to be that kind of friend, and I long for these kinds of friends in my life.  I long for depth over breadth… to know and be known. 

My go-to thought whenever I realize something is lacking in my life is to re-prioritize and then adjust my schedule.  I’ve been known to put the most ridiculous things on the calendar just to make sure they happen.  Is that the answer for making room in our lives for deep friendship? Can friendship be scheduled?  Calendared?  Itemized? Is it something that I commit to a certain number of hours per week, then check off the friendship box on my to-do list?  That may be a springboard, but it certainly is not a way of life… at least not my way of life.  Friendship, like a meal at the table needs freedom to take whatever shape is needed in each season to not only be the most nourishing, but to make room for celebration, for fasting when needed.  That sounds a whole lot more like an art to me and not at all like an exact science, which, I must confess, makes me uncomfortable.  Science leans toward the proven and exact.  Art is subjective, open for interpretation.  In other words, friendship involves risk.  Risk of being rejected, risk of giving more than you receive  and feeling vulnerable or foolish, risk of entering too far into the pain of another – making them dependent on you rather than encouraged by you, risk after risk after risk.

The question then becomes, “Is it worth it?”

John 15:13 "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." - Jesus

Proverbs 17:17 "A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for adversity."

Proverbs 27:17 "As iron sharpens iron, so one person sharpens another."

It is absolutely worth it!  But we'll have to come to grips with the transient, free-flowing nature of relationships without insisting that they conform to our idealistic definitions.  Sometimes friendship may be the main course in our lives, sometimes a side dish or dessert, sometimes we may go through seasons of fasting altogether, but none of these is meant to be the ONLY way to approach friendship for the long haul.  The longer I live, the more I believe in embracing the ebb and flow without constantly feeling the need to label it: success or failure, good or bad.  We were created by a God who gave us a world of infinite variety and who expects us to delight in that variety and give Him glory in it, not get overwhelmed by a complex and multi-faceted world and, by reaction, sequester ourselves in a tiny corner of it, building protective walls of definitions and patterns of behavior that make us feel like we’ve got a handle on things.  Safety-goggle-friendship happens outside those walls, and it is worth it.

---