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"A friend loves at all times, and a brother is born for a time of adversity.”
–– Proverbs 17:17
"Oil and perfume make the heart glad, and the sweetness of a friend comes from his earnest counsel." –– Proverbs 27:9
"Love one another with brotherly affection. Outdo one another in showing honor.”
–– Romans 12:10
It is said that a picture paints a thousand words, and while I would not dare to dismiss that, I would add that a photo resonates across the decades. The graduation of the Humpty Dumpty Kindergarten was held in the basement fellowship hall of First Presbyterian Church of Louisiana, MO. While I would move on from that community following the eighth grade, the faces from that class remain clearly identifiable not only in regard to appearance, but also in terms of personality and character. In the smaller of small towns, when you are in school with the same folks on a majority of each year’s days from kindergarten to the threshold of high school, you come to know them fairly well. You were with them when they wrecked their bikes, when they chose sides in a kickball game, when you tried out for the basketball team, when they were called out in class, when the carnival came to town, and when you stood in line awaiting the joy or disappointment of what appeared on your lunch tray. You called some friends and regarded others as foes. You saw them at their best and sometimes at their worst. You may not have always liked them but in a small town like ours, you could not ignore them, because for so much of the year, they were just there.
One photo from that kindergarten graduation stands out from the others. Robed, capped, and tassled, four boys beam for the arranged photo op: Matthew Brown, Marland McFarland, Luke Stuerman, Johnny Condas. Yep, Matthew, Marland, Luke, and John, 3 ½ gospels smiling at the camera. Two would move away long before I did, but Luke and I have been in contact ever since. We rode our bikes all over and around that small town; we climbed out on a bluff overlooking the Mississippi River; we shivered in the cold water of an early morning swim practice, and when it rained or snowed, we put on our NFL replica uniforms and called our friends to come out to play football with the primary purpose being to slide around in the mud so that we could look like the pros. We cranked up Sweet Georgia Brown on an eight track and pretended we were The Harlem Globetrotters on a driveway basketball court, and following a bet with Luke’s dad that we couldn’t do it, we pitched a pup tent in a graveyard and stayed there all night.
I still use a pocket knife I received as a groomsman at Luke’s wedding, and as he stood with me at our wedding, he was as amazed as I was that someone as magnificent as Donna would choose me. Child-rearing, family obligations, and geography limited our contact for years, but last week we gathered for tacos in suburban St. Louis, and the compulsory retelling of shared experiences and community knowledge brought all those graduates of the Humpty Dumpty Kindergarten into our presence as if life paths had never diverged.
C.S. Lewis said, “Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art... It has no survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival.” Why do you think God chose to live among us in Jesus? To redeem us, yes, but also and just as importantly to enjoy our friendship. Jesus could have traveled by himself from town to town, according to his own pace, unhindered by companions who could never keep up, easily lose focus, show up ill-equipped, and quickly flag in zeal. Jesus could have made his a solo journey, but how boring that would be! Life without friends is like a coloring book without crayons. And so it is that Jesus would say to his traveling companions, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.” Celebrate friendship, share a few tacos, and laugh your yesterdays into today’s joy.
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