By Ryan LeBlanc

Has friendship become more difficult to experience? Maybe it’s just me.

Recently I saw a friend I had not stayed in contact with the way I wanted to. Spontaneously, I told them, “I need friendship.”

Where does that need live? Do I need more friends? More time with friends? More genuine friends? Or does that need live in me: do I need to be more available, receptive, generous?

Our present moment suggests to me that commitment to friendship has never been more important for us. I think many of us are struggling to initiate, reach out and maintain friendship.

Jesus makes this commitment: “I have called you friends,” (John 15:15).

If we sit down and ponder the Creator of the entire universe, and then imagine what it means for him to speak these words to us – to me – we have a lot to think about.

God himself calls us friends because he tells us what he is doing. And while this tells us about God, it also tells us what friendship is.

A friend is someone to whom you make yourself known. A revelation of what’s going on inside. If I need friendship, then I need to be willing to reveal myself.

This can make friendship difficult.

A friendship has to be among persons, and so often, we hold out images and profiles for other people to look at instead of revealing our heart. Like waving around a toy action figure and pretending to talk through it. If I need friendship, I need to be real.

How many people do we really reveal ourselves to? How many people would we say know the real us?

Jesus never did anything to hide or deny what was really in his heart. His friends knew the real Jesus. More importantly, he never even hid himself from his enemies.

What does it take, then, to live and relate with others in such a way that I never hide, deny or deceive what I’m doing or what’s going on inside of me? What kind of intention, what kind of work brings me closer to this way of living?

Maybe you can relate to my first obvious obstacle to Jesus’s kind of extreme friendship: I wonder how to reveal to others what is unknown and mysterious even to myself.

Perhaps our first work towards friendship begins with the difficult question of how much a friend we are to ourselves. We must each spend the time in our heart to get to know the real person within, if we are going to share that person with others.

When we honour ourselves with authentic time and attention, we build the capacity to sit at length with others, beyond the superficial and awkward levels. And, in turn, authentic encounter with others illuminates the hidden corners of our soul.

It takes time to build a friendship. We do not suddenly and arbitrarily jump to warp speed in intimacy – at least, not in a healthy way.

Friendship grows on a human time scale. It is not that we have accumulated a mountain that is called friendship, but rather that the act of carrying one pebble intentionally, and another one, and another one, all together is living out friendship. The pebbles are the moments of encounter, of revelation, and while they do accumulate into mountains of life-long friendships, that’s not why we carry them.

What distinguishes Christ’s idea of friendship from social media friends or followers is that he is not concerned with how attractive, positive, or familiar we are (or he is!). He went right through the ugly, painful, and shocking moments on Earth, the kind of things that make us change the channel, click away, or close the tab.

When he calls us friends, then, he enters into our reality, and invites us into his. This is an entirely different level than following me on “Insta.” He actually believes that being a part of our mess is valuable because we are valuable, and we are in our mess.

If I am to be a friend like Jesus, I must hold all the moments: the joyful and glorious, the sorrowful and dazzling. My encounter with another, to the degree that they are willing, becomes a moment of life fully lived because it is fully shared. Laughs and tears, groans and sighs. To be like Jesus, I do not turn away.

Friendship takes up the other’s experience, and offers our own, and we carry it together.

In the flow of earthly time, we cannot be deep friends with every person on the planet. Notice that Jesus himself did not become friends with everyone living at that time.

But, through his example, we can see how we might be open to friendship, or friendly, to more people – perhaps a great deal more people than we thought was possible. There is something in our fallen nature that closes itself off to friendship, trying to protect ourselves. As we become more like Christ – better friends of his – we open ourselves to friendship as he always did.

Maybe I do not experience friendship easily because I stumble under the effort to carry myself on my own. The hands of my heart can feel overfull, weary, beyond capacity.

If I also pretend that I’m holding myself together, I am not likely to reach out and receive the friendship of another.

Jesus’s commitment to be my friend changes everything. I can reveal and share who I really am with someone who can always handle it. Having seen my real self revealed, I do not need to puppet a false self for display. I can allow my true experience to be seen and held by others, even if they fall short. And the hands of my heart are freed to hold another’s revelation with intention and reverence.

I would not say it is easy, but maybe I can let it be a little less difficult.

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Ryan LeBlanc is a teacher at Bethlehem Catholic High School in Saskatoon and a parishioner at the Cathedral of the Holy Family.