Broken Friendships

In the twists and turns of the journey of life, many people have been my friends along the way.  At the least, friends share common interests; they are supporters, allies, chosen family.

As far as word meanings go, a friend is a lover, literally.  The definition and word history of ‘friend’ is:

Latin: amicus (friend) and amo (I love)

Greek: philos (friend) and phileo (I love)

Old English: freond (friend) and freon (love)

The wounds from a friend then, can be harsh because you have let them into your life as a trusted one, as a ‘lover’ in that sense.  Betrayal isn’t expected.

The closer you feel to a friend, the more wrenching the sense of betrayal.

The most devastating betrayals in my life have been those by ‘christian’ friends.  These friends presented themselves as special, as family; as trustworthy, implying permanence in the relationship. The sense was that of a special, deeper, more real relationship, fully worthy of trust, one in which betrayal was not even considered.

Why then, did these ‘christian’ friends reject the relationship?  Cool the communication?  Break the bond?

None of them has ever said why, though I’ve asked.  Response has been vague, noncommittal, unexplained. 

Which makes it even harder.

So here’s my attempt at answering my own question:

You are fearful that my own search for truth might expose the deception you live in.  It’s a wonderful deception that gives you comfort and hope, but it’s not explainable because it’s not real.  You’re fearful that my questioning might somehow infect your own belief with doubt.  Your beliefs aren’t based in evidence but in wish and hope and what someone wrote in letters long, long ago.  

Maybe you try to convince me of your sense of danger in or discomfort with my questioning, but you can’t communicate.  It seems like we’re speaking two different languages.  So without words to explain your fear, words that are yours and not simply parroted from ‘holy writings’, words that can be understood as simple, logical, factual, you simply turn away and turn off.  

Why are christians so afraid of what’s real?  Why do they need to hide behind belief?

The definition of belief is ‘an acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof’.  Especially without proof.  Something that has evidence for it doesn’t require belief. If you live your life on evidence, that’s quite different from living your life on ‘belief’. There’s a sense of grounding, of connectedness, of reality in evidence that is missing in belief.

To live on evidence is hard.  It’s gritty, it’s messy, and it’s often painful.  It’s no accident that many people in the world hold to one belief system or another. Real life is pretty raw.

Christians in particular seem to travel through life guarding their hope of belief for another life to come, one in which they will be surrounded by people who think as they do, one in which all their ‘enemies’ will have been destroyed, one in which all their dreams will come true.  That’s a big hope to defend.  What happens if they lose it, if their mindset changes to one that’s no longer satisfied with belief, but seeks truth? It’s a big fall from such a place. 

I don’t blame my beloved friends for protecting themselves, for holding onto their dream.  I just wish they didn’t have to hurt me so much while doing it.