The Cure by Lynch John & McNicol Bruce & Thrall Bill

Author:Lynch, John & McNicol, Bruce & Thrall, Bill
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: -
Publisher: Cross Section Ventures, Inc.
Published: 2011-11-16T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER SIX | TWO FRIENDS

“What if it was less important that anything ever gets fixed than that nothing has to be hidden?”

We were kids. We didn’t know any better. We just found each other. We learned to play and dream. We told each other everything and made the pacts best friends make. In the confidence of this camaraderie, we risked the deeper woods behind our homes and rode our bikes farther into unexplored neighborhoods. We built forts and dens out in the back alley where packs of us would meet to commune, telling and creating stories. Love was assumed; loyalty and protection were built in. We never went easily into our homes when the streetlights blinked to life. We waited until we were called, and even then only until our parents shouted our full names. We knew when the front door closed behind us, the miraculous world where we were best known, on our level, would be replaced with homework, chores, and bathtubs.

Summer was what we imagined heaven to be. We played hard all day and sprawled on our backs in fields, talking easily about everything and anything. It’s where we had our first real conversations about God. We gave unspoken permission for the other to tell hard truth, even badly expressed, because we were convinced the other had our back. We were too young for relational drama or cliques. And if we did get crossways, one glance of acknowledged forgiveness the next morning set us back out into adventures three neighborhoods away. There was little posturing, hardly any deception. None of us knew or cared who was more talented or better looking.

Then a best friend moved away. Or someone stole a baseball card. Or we were split up into rival Little League teams. Or we reached the age when attraction for the opposite sex becomes a competition. Like a chlorine tablet in a summer pool, those childhood communities of trust, safety, and vulnerability gradually dissolved.

What didn’t dissolve was our need for them.

Fast forward to now, wherever you’re reading these words. For many, looking back means the scattered debris of relationships we thought would always be there, now strained, convoluted, and estranged. We invested our hearts and dreams into those relationships.

We made pacts we’d always face this life together. Our belief in each other was the push to head deeper into the woods of our grown-up world. Then, too many of our friends went away. Almost out of necessity, we grew tougher, guarding our hearts and commitments, giving ourselves an out. Our homes grew quieter. We learned to focus on what our gifting could accomplish. Slowly, without noticing, we closed ourselves off. We’re still funny, talented, insightful, but this recording is playing in our heads: What happened? Why am I unknown, lonely, and lost? Why hasn’t this worked out the way I imagined?

So we dig our own trenches and face increasingly complicated life issues alone. We may meet in small groups, but it’s more playacting than authenticity. We show cracks in measures, with little intention of allowing anyone to help fill them.

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