Wednesday April 29, 2009
Cultivate your friendships
An Australian study has found that friendship can be good for your health.
Surely we all know that already, don\’t we?
Well, maybe we do, but we don\’t always act on what we know.
The Australian study found that older people with a large circle of friends were 22 percent less likely to die during the 10-year study period than those with fewer friends. Similarly, the Harvard School of Public Health concluded that “social integration” – a fancy phrase for having a circle of friends – delayed memory loss among elderly Americans. Among the least integrated, memory declined at twice the rate as among the most integrated.
Unfortunately, friendship – like the late Rodney Dangerfield – don\’t get no respect.
“In general, the role of friendship in our lives isn\’t well appreciated,” said Rebecca G. Adams, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. “There\’s scads of stuff on families and marriage, but very little on friendship.”
Adams suggested that friendship may have greater influence on our health than family relationships do.
What\’s a friend?
I suspect friendships may also have an effect on others. The most common description of mass killers in the U.S. – from Columbine to Oklahoma City to Binghampton – is that the killer was “a loner,” a man who kept to himself.
An article in UTNE Reader magazine tried to define the characteristics of a friend. A friend, it said, “listens but never judges, helps you out of a jam, tells it to you straight, and often forgives a debt.” Those debts may not be monetary – friends do not keep score of favours given and received.
There is a tendency these days, in world affairs, to equate friendship with conformity. Compliance. An uncritical falling in line.
Friends, married couples, close associates, can speak truth to each other without destroying the relationship. To urge a friend to quit smoking is not being disloyal. To caution an associate against questionable sales techniques is not betrayal.
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For a lighter look at ethics, faith, and life, I recommend Ralph Milton\’s weekly e-newsletter Rumors. You can subscribe to it at the Wood Lake Books home page in Ralph Milton\’s Site, or by sending a note directly to ralphmilton@woodlake.com.
It\’s also worth pursuing Charlene Fairchild\’s United Online site. Another site worth visiting is David Keating\’s \”SeemslikeGod\” page.
The late John Macmurray, a British philosopher who died in 1967, did some insightful BBC radio talks. One of them dealt with friendship.
A dominant theme of the Christian gospels, Macmurray noted, was the “Kingdom of God.” But it had contradictory premises. On the one hand, it was already among us. On the other hand, people should watch for it — it could come at any time, unexpectedly.
Exploring this apparent contradiction, Macmurray observed that Jesus always spoke about familiar experiences. He rarely dealt with abstract hypotheses. He certainly did not venture into science fiction.
So, Macmurray asked, what is there that we are familiar with already, but that could happen anytime? His answer was friendship. Everyone has known friendship. Most of us have at least one close friend. And yet friendship can blossom unexpectedly, unpredictably.
Wouldn\’t it be wonderful, Macmurray suggested, if we could treat everyone we encountered as a friend? Or at least, as a possible friend? And could there be a better “Kingdom of God” than a world in which all were friends to each other?
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Copyright © 2009 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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