This is not the sermon you may have anticipated for this morning.
You may have arrived in hopes of hearing a deep theological treatise on keeping Lent from a Unitarian Universalist perspective.
And truly that was my intent until recent meteorological events came between us last weekend.
In an attempt to mind both my fiduciary responsibilities to save the church money and my ecological responsibilities not to waste paper, I decided to go ahead with the service planned for last Sunday with a few major changes.
Instead of the choir this morning we are blessed to have Jon Rose and while I apologize for the limited number of bulletins if you are a regular here on Sunday mornings, what we do should be pretty familiar.
And plus, on this Valentine's day what would you rather hear me talk about-discipline, abstinence, and the blessings of an imperfect life or the ultimate source of human good?
For I truly believe that deep and abiding friendship is the source of goodness from which all else flows.
So, to begin.
I was born in September of 1946. Less than twelve months after my father returned from his service in WW II. I was raised in a family that reflected many of the lingering values of the Victorian age.
Growing up we were not a particularly close family.
No one gushed when some one achieved a major success in school or on the playing field.
Not many tears were shed when loved ones moved away or were lost to illness or even death. We were truly of the stiff-upper-lip tradition.
Throughout my early years and my adolescence I thought I had plenty of friends, but as with my family I managed to keep them at arms length.
Like so many children of the fifties we were taught that boys didn't cry, weren't affectionate, and didn't rely on one another for emotional support.
In fact, heaven forbid that any such behaviors might be evident.
In high school I hung around with a bunch of guys and our common bonds seemed to have been cars, girls, and cigarettes-not necessarily in that order.
Now the membership of this group of friends was fairly constant although some would move on to other sports or other similar groups and occasionally someone new would take their place.
It all seemed rather fluid and none of us ever seemed particularly upset by any of this.
Couples seemed to change partners with some regularity and life and school went on. I think we thought we were in the in-crowd.
But at 18, I moved away to go off to college and never looked back.
In college, nothing much changed.
Well, something change. I was growing older.
At the time, despite the rise of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, I was truly into the coffee house scene.
This put me among the longhaired, hippie, drug experimenting, faux poets, draft dodgers and novelists of the mid and late 60's.
Again, I was a part of a tight little circle of partners in crime.
Here I found my longhaired, turtleneck wearing, bead flaunting identity.
I was very cool and so were my friends.
I even turned to acting for a brief time and since I seemed to fit in well with the slightly avant-guard Andy Warhol worshipping crowd and my self-identity changed to fit the time and place.
But each time I changed my "group" I never experienced any sense of loss.
And while I had a few friends with whom I was perhaps closer than to others, I was happy to just hang-out with pretty much anyone.
I graduated from College in 1969 and have gone back only once.
I'm not in contact with anyone from those days and while I read my class notes in the alumni magazine most are names I don't recall.
Looking back, I now realize that while I never lacked for companionship; I never really had anyone I considered a close friend.
You see if you were close with someone, if you showed your vulnerabilities, you could get hurt and so why take that chance.
Why not, as I had learned in my family or origin, remain somewhat detached and therefore guarded against the fear of intimacy.
I had lots of buddies, but no real friends.
This morning's sermon is another in my series on topics which are being considered by our 7 covenant groups which meet monthly to have a deep conversation on such topics as doubt, gratitude, balance and forgiveness.
This month these groups are discussing friendship.
In the book, Heart to Heart which provides readings for each covenant group, the authors Christine Robinson and Alicia Hawkins, suggest that a friend is someone with whom you share your soul-your innermost being.
The authors observe that the best lovers are also friends, and in the best of all worlds grown children and parents share a friendship.
They also believe that friendships can be sudden and short-lived as folks come and go through each other's lives, and they observe that even people who live together for years i.e. my family of origin, may not be especially close.
When I was at my ministers' conference in Ottawa, Canada, last November I got to hear a series of lectures by Thomas Moore, an author known for his books, The Care of the Soul and Soul Mates. According to More:
"Each friend is indeed a world, a special sphere of certain emotions, experiences, memories, and qualities of personality. Each friend takes us into a world that is ourselves as well. We are all made up of many worlds and each friendship brings one or more of those worlds to life."
Moore goes on to say that, "Each friendship 'constellates' (the word means 'an arranging of stars') one's universe of meaning and value. One shares with a friend a unique way of looking at life and experiencing it."
But friendships can also bring pain.
While there is nothing quite so wonderful as sharing our lives with another there is the inherent risk that our sharing may be rebuffed and that we might be rejected.
Or even worse, that we might be perceived as being needy.
"No one can hurt us like a friend," the authors of Heart to Heart write.
"The deeper the relationship, the greater the potential (that we may come to feel) rejected, taken for granted or used....both love and loss make our lives full.
The sheer joy of knowing others, and being known and accepted in ourselves, keeps us taking the risks of friendship" even when we are aware of the potential for hurt and loss.
Perhaps these days we have fewer friends because our culture does not value friendship enough.
Friendships are the second tier relationships, with romantic relationships given the premier status.
How often have we heard or used the phrase "Oh, they're just friends"? Just friends, said with a tinge of regret or slight dismissal.
We celebrate marriages of long duration but where are the celebrations to mark the years of long-standing friendships- 10 years of friendship, 25 years, 50 years?
For in truth friendships are often more durable and sustaining that many a marriage.
And, I think, friendship is a form of grace-something perhaps unearned but highly valued.
We are not obliged to be in relationship with our friends, the way we are with our siblings and in-laws, cousins and other relatives.
But the gifts of a true friendship are unbounded.
Likewise, circumstance compels us to relate to neighbors and co-workers, but not so our friends.
Friends are the chosen people of our lives. We chose them, they choose us.
Some friendships make perfect sense- you share a love of sports or politics, your sense of humor is the same, your went through the war together, you went through kindergarten together, you got divorced at the same time.
But other friendships make no sense at all.
Our friendships don't have to make sense- that's the beauty of it. ?
There need be no common sense reason, no calculation of right or wrong, that draws friends together.
We are friends just because; because something in us is drawn to the other and we open up and voluntarily let someone in to our lives.
Jeremiah Creedon, writing in the Utne Reader, describes nineteen different kinds of friendships that we might experience in our lifetimes. Among these are:
"The Best Friend: The gold standard of friendships. A best friend listens but never judges, helps you out of a jam, tells it to you straight, and often forgives a debt. Best friends resemble invisible friends in that both are most common in childhood (and may not really exist).
The Old Friend: Ideally, a lifelong bond that stirs fond feelings and cherished memories-unless you're a celebrity or out on parole. In reality, most old friendships are embedded in a complex economy of favors. President Bush rewrote the entire tax code for his old friends.
The Wild Friend: The friend whose bad behavior never ceases to entertain and may at times inspire you, for better or for worse.
Though wild friends get a bad rap, they save as many lives as they ruin. Boring people-writers, ( or ministers!) for instance-desperately need wild friends.
The Ex-Friend: Don't ask, but if you do, the answer may well involve money or sex. Or both.
The Boss Friend: A person higher on the organizational chart who thinks your brittle smile and the startled look in your eye is an invitation to further terrorize you outside the workplace.
One reason golf is popular in the business world is that it gives underlings a way to pal around with their superiors and still stay 30 yards apart.
The Train or Bus Friend: A person who apparently shares your unquenchable interest in the weather and the fortunes of the local ball team.
The E-mail Friend: A digital update on the kind of letter-writing friendships that thrived in the era between the invention of ink and the arrival of cable.
And of course there is always the friend that you can call at 2AM to help you move the body : )
If the medium is the message, as Marshall McLuhan claimed, then the message of most e-mail friendships is goofing off at work.
And the Dormant Friend: Every so often a dead friendship will spring back to life, bringing two people even closer together than they used to be. The reawakened friendship speaks to the mystery of friendship in general-especially if you've forgotten why you drifted apart. But give it time; you will be reminded.
I'll leave the definition of friends with benefits to your imagination.
Now, life has dealt me a double whammy. Not only was I born into a family that didn't really provide me with models of how friends act, I chose careers that also put up obstacles to finding friends.
As a teacher I had friends among my colleagues, but once I became a principal there was no way I was going to have true friends among the teachers I supervised.
And the same is true in ministry.
As a minister I am called to be open to the needs of my congregation, but I don't really have friends with whom I can share my deepest fears and concerns.
I do that with my colleagues in small support groups.
In fact, a not uncommon retort of ministers to congregant who want to be close friends is, "I am your minister; not your friend." I suppose the same is true among therapists who can never go and just have a drink with a client, as it would violate a ton of boundaries in the patient/therapist relationship.
As a principal and now as a minister I've been blessed with a life partner who is also my confidant, my crying post, my motivator and my best friend....Happy Valentine's Day.
And so in my retirement, I am looking forward to being able to experience a new friendships.
A new openness, especially with men, and to experience the intimacy of close friendships.
I hope to experience friendships where I can be who I most truly am and experience others-not as employees or congregants, but as they truly are.
But the question arises, just where can I find these intimate and caring relationships.
One answer is right here at church.
In an essay titled "On Going to Church" Rev. A. Powell Davies tells the reader:
"Let me tell you why I come to church.
I come to church-and would whether I was a preacher or not-because I fall below my own standards and need to be constantly brought back to them.
It is not enough that I should think about the world and its problems at the level of a newspaper report or a magazine discussion.
It could too soon become too low a level. I must have my conscience sharpened-sharpened until it goads me to the most thorough and responsible thinking of which I am capable. I must feel again the love I owe my fellow men (and women). I must not only hear about it but feel it.
In church, I do....
I want to experience human nature at its best-and be reminded of its highest possibilities, and this happens to me in church.
It may seem as though the same things could be found in solitude, but it does not easily happen so.
In a congregation we share each other's spiritual needs and reinforce each other.
In some ways, the soul is never lonelier than in a church service. That is certainly true of a pulpit, for a pulpit is the most intimately lonely place in the world-yet it is a loneliness that has strength in it.
Perhaps this is because the innermost solitude of the human heart is in some paradoxical way a thing that can be shared-that must be shared-if the spirit of God is to find a full entrance into it.
We meet each other as friends and neighbors anywhere and everywhere, but we seldom do so in the consciousness of our souls' deepest yearnings.
But in church we do-in a way that protects us from all that is intrusive, yet leaves us knowing that we all have the same yearning, the same spiritual loneliness, the same need of assurance and faith and hope.
We are brought together at the highest level possible. We are not merely an audience, we are a congregation.
I doubt whether I could stand the thought of the cruelty and misery of the present world unless I could know, through an experience that renewed itself over and over again, that at the heart of life there is assurance, that I can hold an ultimate belief that all is well.
And this happens in church.
Life must have its sacred moments and its holy places. The soul will always seek its nurture. For religious experience-which is life at its most intense, life at its best-is something we cannot do without."
So on this Valentine's day let us cherish our friends for the gifts that they are and may each of us strive to be the best friend we can to someone who needs that friendship.
Amen and Blessed be.