Being loved for who you are will never, ever satisfy in any lasting, meaningful way...
...Not to disparage at all our existing friendships grounded in empathy and common interests, I swear. But I’ve been thinking a lot about this idea: To say "I love a person for reasons X, Y, and Z-" is natural, but also a way of setting conditions on love. If X, Y, and Z were taken away, or if I changed, and X, Y, and Z no longer interested,
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what has been done will be done again;
there is nothing new under the sun. [Ecclesiastes 1:9]
Building friendships at church? I understand completely. It seems like church, where people share the same values, ought to be fertile ground for friendship; but I find the opposite to be true. We often become acquainted; we rarely opt for anything deeper. I've tried to be a little more proactive about this, y'know? Invite people over for dinner; that kind of thing. But I think there is resistance. Or maybe I'm just going about this wrong. I don't know.
I know there was a man at my church a little younger than I, who did the same kind of work and has kids approximately the same age. We worked together one summer in a children's program, he acting as a Roman guard, and I as Paul, chained to him, telling my (Paul's) story over the course of five weeks. We did become friends, and I thought it might become that rare kind of friendship you wrote of. But by the end of the year he and his wife felt they were being asked too often to do too much at the church and they felt burnt out. So they left. We are still friends, but I feel like something of value was lost. And quite frankly, I'm a little angry at God for this, though I suppose He must have something up His sleeve.
Sometimes I think otherwise well-meaning church-goers treat Sunday school or bible-study as a kind of group-therapy: We share our problems and compassion each other, then our hour is up and we get off the couch, pick up our kids from child-care, and go home. And one does not become friends with one's therapist, no? I admit freely that this somewhat misrepresents, but sometimes this is what it feels like. Maybe compassioning each other is good, too -- but can we go out for a burger and talk about stuff and maybe see each other in non-Church contexts?
So it looks the same from over here where I am. There are people, we are acquainted, we don't seem to know each other any deeper than that.
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