This week I traveled to Waco, Texas to attend a conference at Baylor. I hadn't seen the campus since 2002, and approximately 50% of it has completely changed. It was almost eerie.
The conference was devoted to friendship, which was appropriate since much of my motivation for going was to visit some good friends that I hadn't seen in quite a while. Down in Waco, I stayed with Jones, who was my roommate for both years I was in school down there, and had dinner with Schobert, who was one of the friends I made from the seminary there. The conference attendees included lots of Baylor people, naturally, but also a lot of people from SLU.
On Friday, I drove up to Dallas to see my sister, Karen, and my brother-in-law, Sean. Sean went with me to dinner that night with a handful of my friends who live in the DFW area. There were six of them (not including yours truly), representing four different social circles (and one spouse whom I was meeting for the first time). Normally, I find myself a bit ill-at-ease when my worlds collide like that, and this was the biggest world collision I'd experienced since my wedding. But we all had a great time.
The whole experience wiped me out--I was ready to drop by the time I got back to Portland last night--but it reminded me how blessed I am to count these people (and others) among my friends. I certainly don't deserve them, and I've failed my friends more than I like to admit, but I do treasure each one. On this topic, Aristotle was absolutely right: friendship is an essential part of a choiceworthy, flourishing life.
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2 comments:
Excuse me, but I am your wife and I am telling you that you deserve your good friends and that I can't think of a time when I've known you that you've ever failed anyone.
Not that those folks aren't wonderful people, just that you are pretty marvelous yourself. I don't go about marrying slackers.
w -
All due respect to you as Goody Callaway here, but let me enumerate some failures of your dear husband:
1. Failure to cover hindquarters on repeated occasions often at disturbingly frightening proximities to his friends
2. Failure to not ask his friends' dates out on dates while his friends are on actually on a date with the datee in question
3. Failure to share his food, often forcing his friends to resort to thievery to obtain what was rightfully Chris's...wait, that didn't come out right.
4. In a related failure, Chris has repeatedly failed to ensure that his dear mother keeps his friends well-stocked with cookies. Not being college roomates at present time doesn't appear to be a relevant defense of this failure. Mmmmmm...Chris's mom....'s cookies.
;-)
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