Truth, Tenderness and Sacrifice: Creative Friendship

A sermon offered at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Lafayette, Indiana
June 17, 2001
By Rev. Hilary Landau Krivchenia

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote a beautiful essay on friendship and he had a wide circle of acquaintances, but he was not a man of intimate friendships – though it is clear that he wished for them. He wrote: A new person is to me a great event, and hinders me from sleep. But he also wrote: We walk alone in the world. Friends, such as we desire, are dreams and fables.

Are friendships dreams and fables? Certainly friendship isn’t easy to find – there are amazing and magical friendships in childhood but it becomes more complicated as people age to make those crystalline connections. Women seem to have a somewhat easier time with friendships than do men but for women as well as men there are risks and disappointments that make friendship more of a challenge to as we get older.

And there are so many reasons why it is so much of a challenge. Time becomes increasingly filled up as we age – friendship requires real time. I think of the friendships of childhood and I realize that in youth friendships emerge from vast stretches of time spent just hanging out. Weekends spent swinging in the yard, or climbing in the woods. I remember a few months ago my son by marriage, James, was out running down his street in Oak Park with a group of his friends. They were, indeed, like a wild ponies, moving in rhythm and play with one another, in a herd that moved as though drawn by the wind and the moon. And then they would stop – pawing the ground with their feet, stamping in place. They would talk and yell and then the moon or the wind would call them and they would be off running again, scattering and gathering again. And out of some of those cantering nights at twelve will evolve some intense high school friendships – bonds formed in the fresh facing of the adventure of life. We seldom have time, as we grow older, to hang out together like that and wait for a wave of depth to sweep us into intimacy. Even in youth we run the risk of rejection and disappointment. It can get to be hard to open up for worry of those risks – and there are more reasons than those. But dissecting those reasons is not the focus of this sermon.

Yet friendship is a wondrous thing – a treasure

This I know from my own priceless friendships. I know about friendships -- from a woman’s perspective. And there are qualities to friendship that I suspect transcend gender, altogether. But I am curious about men’s friendships. I do know that these friendships don’t grow on trees. Neither do women’s for that matter. Today – father’s day – I want to draw close to friendship, explore it, and perhaps lift up its power among us gathered. In part I want to talk about this on Father’s Day because, as I looked at friendship every there were assertions and evidences even among the men that I know that friendship can be a challenging terrain for men -- particularly between men. And I also know that deep friendships can transform a man’s life – it happens – and when it does it seems to open men into a place where play is more passionate and frequent, adventures are at hand, struggles are survived in company, and creativity abounds. On Father’s Day I want to reach toward that place where rarer qualities live and retrieve something life-giving. To celebrate the power of friendship. For the things that renew us – deeply renew us -- not only make us stronger but can bring to parenting more energy and joy – and can bring to our lives an awakening quality of creativity. I want to celebrate friendship because I agree with Emerson that "happy is the house that shelters a friend!"

But what is a friend?

There is a scene that Stuart Miller describes in the book Men and Friendship, in which he is sitting in silence with a man – they have had hours of deep talk that somehow seemed almost superficial and then over dinner they fall powerfully silent together. Miller writes: "The words, the questions, the answers – sharing – were not quite satisfying. It didn’t do justice to the real affection I felt for Harry. This was different. We both kept quiet sharing this silence we had somehow created together."

Friendship exists somewhere beyond words -- hard to capture. It moves in the present and builds for the future, it’s rare and yet potential throughout life, the greatest of gifts.

Probably the most famous early written friendship between men is the covenant made between Jonathan and David in the First Book of Samuel in the Hebrew Bible. They covenanted to stand by one another. It is written like this: After David had finished talking with Saul, Jonathan became one in spirit with David, and Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself." Their connection was so strong that Jonathan went against his father Saul to warn David that Saul intended to kill him.

And there is the story of the heroic friendship of Damon and Pythias. Pythias was condemned to death for plotting against Dionysius I of Syracuse but he was given leave to go home and arrange his affairs because his friend Damon pledged to give his own life if Pythias did not return. Pythias returned just in time to take his own place for execution and Dionysius was so impressed by their loyal friendship that he released them both.

In the sixteenth century Michel De Montaigne cared enough about his friend, Etienne de la Boetie, to write about their deep friendship and to try to capture its essential quality. "If you press me to say why I loved him,"he wrote, "I can say no more than it was because he was he and I was I." There is an aspect of friendship that enables each person to be themselves – as they are – accepted – loved. Yes, acceptance is key to friendship. But I am also looking for the conditions that make friendship a transformative force in the heart.

There was a creative friendship between the members of the Inklings – a circle of writers that included J.R.R.Tolkien, C.S.Lewis, and other writers who would bring their work together and out of that was born more creative material. Lewis had a close relationship with George MacDOnald, another writer, with whom he’d explore religious matters. Lewis called Macdonald his mentor and claimed that there’d never been a book that he’d written in which he hadn’t quoted MacDonald. It was a relationship over years -- through times of personal struggle and times of rich creativity. It is this creative quality that draws me deeply into the matter of friendship.

It is a quality I saw again as I looked at the intense friendship between Isamu Noguchi and Buckminster Fuller. Isamu Noguchi is responsible for some well known developments in modern sculpture and interior design – tables shaped like large glass boomerangs on sculptured bases and countoured one piece chairs. Lamps that make light play with a room. Bucky Fuller is the man who designed the geodesic dome – and a revolution of ideas about the way people could live. They met in their thirties at a time when they were each still seeking a sense of place -- that quality that John Wilms spoke about here two weeks ago. Fuller was shaken by a series of personal crises that took him to an emotional edge. Moving beyond that edge he had decided to cease being a local man – He decided to follow the example of his great Aunt, Unitarian Visionary Margaret Fuller, who said: I must start with the universe and work down to the parts." In the late twenties he began to write about a revolution in design and to turn his energies to helping humanity – to looking beyond boundaries and constructing a vision of what he called "Spaceship Earth" that would bring humanity into a being a harmonious future. Noguchi was half Anglo-Saxon North American and half Japanese. He felt that he fit in neither at home in Japan nor in the United States. Noguchi called himself a "citizen of nowhere. They were separated by almost ten years of age. When they met – they saw in one another a vision of a world without nations and borders. Fuller was a scientist, philosopher, and architect. And Noguchi was a designer, activist, and sculptor. They inspired one another. They spent days together and listened deeply to one another – although, I suspect, that Noguchi did more of the listening. For a while they even gave up their homes and lived on pennies so that they could fund their artwork and projects. They slept under a model of Fuller’s Dymaxion house in the lobby of the Roger Smith hotel. Over time they had differences – great differences – particularly political -- but, as Noguchi said, "our very disagreements also make us better friends."

I see in this relationship a transcendent quality – a quality in some ways beyond the details of these men’s daily lives. It is a quality that transforms the world because it is larger, perhaps even greater than the men who share it. For Noguchi and Fuller, this transcendent quality was the command of the future. It was as though they worked and created in the present world of daily life but beneath all of that they met in a place called the future.

It was a personal, strong, and creative friendship. Sacrifice, loyalty, transcending value, sparking creativity – these are qualities, among others, of the finest friendship. For these men and other others something in the friendship calls them to be more than they were – they’re inspired, yes, but also they are somehow pushed to live up to their hopes and estimations of one another.

Maybe that is why friendship – deep friendship for women as well as for men hits snags – because it demands something significant of us. It does not often ask quite the willingness to sacrifice as Damon and Pythias – but perhaps it does demand things which, as moderns – even post moderns – we are unused to offering. To achieve depth in friendship the offering must be out of the deepest resources of the self.

But, you know, careers demand, children demand, spouses and sweethearts demand .. but they should also renew… maybe the balance sheets are coming up short. Maybe…

Maybe people are too used to moving, to parting, even to moving on when things are too difficult. Maybe…

Miller describes a friend of his – Larry to whom he sends a draft of his book. He is not entirely sure of Larry’s friendship – they stay in touch and they talk but something has not clicked – he does not know what – still he sends the draft for reading and months pass. Finally calling Larry, Miller learns that Larry has read the draft – explored it like a naturalist – observing the slightest detail – the margins are full of his careful thoughts – so careful he was not sure it was complete enough to send back. He cared too much to send it back. Finally, they discover together the firm ground of friendship as they talk, press, venture further and explore with tenderness.

Miller traveled around the United States and parts of Europe interviewing people – mostly about friendships between men. After a while he developed a list of questions to ask – based on what he saw and what he did not see in those friendships. There are Millers words – they’re interesting:

If your friend called you at 2 in the morning and said" I am out on the highway and I need you to come and help me bury a body, no questions asked, would you go?" If your friend needed to move in with you for a year would you receive him? If your friend asked you to mortgage your house for him, would you do it? If your friend went crazy, difficult crazy, would you take care of him yourself so that he might avoid institutionalization?

Those are tough questions – tough demands – they speak to the heart of friendship – real trust – real trust – solid commitment and love. Could you give that much – would it be frightening to receive that much?

Friendship makes a demand but the demand is the beginning of the gift – it asks for loyalty, constancy, and sacrifice.

Emerson said that friendship requires two central things – the truth and tenderness. In all of these relationships, both of those qualities shine – the truth is offered, but ever tempered with real tenderness – the true respect of peers. Perhaps what eluded Emerson, though, was the necessity of sacrifice, though he was a generous man. Perhaps he measured himself too carefully against the balance sheet. I am not sure.

A man that Miller interviewed put it this way about his friendship -- "True friendship, I suppose, is a matter of breaking down the barriers of ordinary social distance – of secrecy, of touch, of possessions. There is a freedom in the presence of the other."

Interesting – Truth, tenderness and sacrifice.

I think of Noguchi and Fuller – friends for nearly sixty years – sharing bowls of soup and brilliant thoughts and political differences. I think of those two German men who found one another in this country and discovered that they came from different sides of the holocaust – and they decided to press through the pain and the shame and find one another as friends on the other side. That is truth and tenderness, and sacrifice. It feuls new things.

Oh you can get by without friendship but look at the power of those who decide to get by through it. They inspire worlds in one another and create new worlds together. I suppose that my father’s day wish is that the stories of great friendships be the stories of daily life – that men, like women, are more times restored and inspired by great companions.

Individually, friendship waits behind a million faces everyday. Emerson wrote: How many we see in the street, or sit with in church, whom, though silently, we warmly rejoice to be with! Read the language of these wandering eye-beams. Sure, it’s to be risky – it is like a shaky branch moving in the wind – but the fruit is sweet and the view is expansive. Huck Finn knew it – he was willing to give up his lone freedom for the greater freedom of being with his friends. The fruit is sweet and the view expansive if we but climb the tree.

Of course, I, think of this place – this congregation of people of worth and dignity. It makes me think of the potent – the possibility that is gathered here right now. And I have to say -- Don’t you believe everything you read in the papers. The article by Rachel Noll of the associated press terribly distorted our religious movement. What happens here is nothing short of profoundly religious. Remember the word came from the Latin to bind back, to bring together. Tenderness – Truth. We offer here – first and foremost a boundless mercy – a lifting up of souls. Each one of us may put this in differing language –

To you – it may be the mercy of god – to you it may be the love of Jesus – to you it may be refuge in the Buddha – to you it may be the deep embrace of the Mother – to you it may be infinite human potential – to you it may be just the acceptance you have needed. But to us all it is the inherent worth and dignity of every person. Differing language through which we listen for the spirit. Here we ask a raising up of ethical spirits beyond the demands of mere agreement – we ask for more than agreement among ourselves – we ask for a ceaseless endeavor after the truth. We offer here a deep acceptance – a boundless mercy but also a tender challenge to seek greater meaning and commitment in life. Sounds like the sweetest rigors of friendship. Tenderness and Truth – and perhaps, when we fall short it is because we fall short of sacrifice – of passionate commitment. One of the people quoted in that misguided article in the paper yesterday asked "Why are we a religion?"

We are a religion because someone needs to ask this endeavor of humans right now. Buckminster Fuller said: "Either you're going to go along with your mind and the truth, or you're going to yield to fear and custom and conditioned reflexes." Someone needs to makes demands on the human spirit right now – not within a framework of dogmatic agreement – but demands of freedom – of truth, of tenderness, of service, and sacrifice. That someone is us.

Beginning with one another. This is a room full of potent souls – of spirited brothers and sisters – just when they are most needed. There are times that we gather like people riding together on a city bus – simply getting some place. But there are times that we meet and become more than we were – when new things – real and deep – not facts but new realities come to us. Learned at a Forum, in the quiet of an adult religious education class, in quiet conversation, making a budget or a long range plan, dreaming the dimensions of the new church, risking to reach out to someone grieving, giving more than we dreamed that we could, hearing and telling our spiritual journeys in new member orientation. We begin to become more than we were when deep gifts of truth and tenderness are offered -- and we walk out of our doors greater than we were when we entered. This is no dream or fable for we are here together now. Guided by principles, informed by vision – sustained by tenderness and reaching ever toward truth this congregation can have the power of a myriad friendships joined. Like the triangles of a geodesic dome. The power of a myriad friendships joined.

Readings

From Huckleberry Finn By Mark Twain

The widder's good to me, and friendly; but I can't stand them ways. She makes me get up just at the same time every morning; she makes me wash, I got to wear them blamed clothes that just smothers me, Tom; they don't seem to any air git through 'em, somehow; and they're so rotten nice that I can't set down, nor lay down, nor roll around anywher's; I hain't slid on a cellar-door for -- well, it 'pears to be years; I got to go to church and sweat and sweat -- I hate them ornery sermons! I can't ketch a fly in there. …everything’s so awful reg'lar a body can't stand it. I got to ask to go a-fishing; I got to ask to go in a-swimming. I HAD to shove, Tom. Now these old clothes suits me, and I ain't ever going to shake 'em any more."

"Oh, Huck, if you'll try this thing just a while longer you'll come to like it."

"Like it! Yes -- the way I'd like a hot stove if I was to set on it long enough. Blame it all! just as we'd a cave, and all just fixed to rob, here this dern foolishness has got to come up and spile it all!"

Tom saw his opportunity --

"Lookyhere, Huck, being rich ain't going to keep me back from turning robber."

"No! Oh, good-licks; are you in real dead-wood earnest, Tom?"

"Just as dead earnest as I'm sitting here. But Huck, we can't let you into the gang if you ain't respectable, you know."

Huck's joy was quenched.

"Can't let me in, Tom? Didn't you let me go for a pirate?"

"Yes, but that's different. A robber is more high- toned than what a pirate is -- as a general thing. In most countries they're awful high up in the nobility -- dukes and such."

"Now, Tom, hain't you always been friendly to me? You wouldn't shet me out, would you, Tom?"

"Huck, I wouldn't want to, and I DON'T want to -- but what would people say? Why, they'd say, 'Mph! Tom Sawyer's Gang! pretty low characters in it!' They'd mean you, Huck. You wouldn't like that, and I wouldn't."

Huck was silent for some time, engaged in a mental struggle. Finally he said:

"Well, I'll go back to the widder for a month and tackle it and see if I can come to stand it, if you'll let me b'long to the gang, Tom."

From the Essay Friendship by Ralph Waldo Emerson

The end of friendship is a commerce more strict than any of which we have experience. It is for aid and comfort through all the relations and passages of life and death. It is fit for serene days, and graceful gifts, and country rambles, but also for rough roads and hard fare, shipwreck, poverty, and persecution. It keeps company with the sallies of the wit and the trances of religion. We are to dignify to each other the daily needs and offices of man's life, and embellish it by courage, wisdom, and unity. It should never fall into something usual and settled, but should be alert and inventive, and add rhyme and reason to what was drudgery.

……………….We walk alone in the world. Friends, such as we desire, are dreams and fables. But a sublime hope cheers ever the faithful heart, that elsewhere, in other regions of the universal power, souls are now acting, enduring, and daring, which can love us, and which we can love. We may congratulate ourselves that the period of nonage, of follies, of blunders, and of shame, is passed in solitude, and when we are finished men, we shall grasp heroic hands in heroic hands.