I had a recurring conversation with a good friend the other day. It's a conversation I've had before with her as well as others. It boils down to how to make meaningful connections with others, especially within church communities. In an age when we have so many ways to forge connections with people -- phones, e-mail, get-togethers, church functions that center around just about every topic you could imagine -- why do I find that so many of my associations with others are shallow?
When I was younger, making meaningful friendships seemed easy. I became friends with people in my elementary, junior high and high school classes. In college, the people in closest proximity to me-- the ones who lived on my dorm floor -- became my good friends. I still have some of those friends. I still keep in touch with a few dear friends from high school and a few from college.
Once I graduated from college and lived on my own, though, friendships became more difficult to start and maintain. At church, where you'd think friendships would be easily made, connections were difficult. I was single until I was 31, and I always got the sense in the churches I attended that I was out of place. I wasn't married, didn't have kids. So where did I belong? Nowhere, it seemed. I went to church, but nothing really kept me in any one community. Not singles groups. Not Bible studies. I "church hopped" for a while in search of some sort of meaningful connections with people.
I thought it would become easier when I got married. The reality is it's just as difficult. When I was single, I could forge connections with individuals. Now my husband and I go to church as a couple. We are together, a unit. On the one hand, I enjoy that. Marriage is a wonderful thing, and Mike has become my dearest friend. On the other hand, I think it's harder to make friends as a couple. You both have to click with the people you're trying to make friends with. That's not always easy.
I find that churches separate people into age groups -- teenagers, college students, young marrieds, young families, parents of teenagers, seniors, etc. -- and those separations keep us from thinking we have anything in common with those who aren't in our same age bracket or season of life. Singles feel like they can't relate to moms. Young moms find it hard to see what they have in common with empty-nesters. I find that most people in their 30s like me and Mike are busy with their own families. Couples our age with kids have demands on their time that we don't have. And most other couples we know who have been married the same amount of time we have -- three years -- are in their mid-20s, not their mid-30s. Sometimes that difference feels like a generation gap. (I, too, can be stuck in the age-bracket mentality.)
We certainly haven't done everything we can to reach out. It takes intention. Friendships aren't going to happen like clockwork like they did in high school or college. It's too easy to just go to work, come home, flip on the TV, surf the Internet and disengage from the things that demand our attention all day long. (Funny how the things meant to connect us -- namely technological advances like cell phones and e-mail -- really can leave us feeling more isolated.) It's easy not to invite another couple over for dinner or ask an individual friend to coffee. It's easy to stay in our own little world -- nothing given, nothing received, nothing shared, nothing gained.
I don't have an answer to this dilemma of how to make meaningful connections. I just notice that I've had this conversation a lot lately with others who have noticed the same thing in their lives. It tells me I'm not alone, that it's a more common experience than I realized. Perhaps that's common experience enough for us to reach out to one another.
"We appreciate what we share, we do not appreciate what we receive. Friendship . . . is not acquired by giving presents. Friendship . . . comes about by two people sharing a significant moment, by having an experience in common." -- Abraham Joshua Heschel
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