0:00:08 – Barnabas

Hey, welcome to the Curious Curmudgeon Podcast. I am Barnabas Piper here with my co-curmudgeon, Adam Read. Welcome, Adam. Think back a couple years nay, decades to childhood, as you bounced around the United States as previously covered on this podcast. Did you have a best friend as a kid? 

 

0:00:28 – Adam

Wow, that’s a tough one. I saw that question coming up and I was like man, how do I answer that? Because we did live in a lot of different places and I did have great friends at different locations. But, like honestly, my best friend growing up which is probably odd for a lot of people because it’s a sibling was my sister and we had a great friendship. So that sounds like some you know Sunday school answer or something, but in reality it’s true. No, most of the church kids I know didn’t like their siblings. I mean, we had our moments, but she’s a great sister. So since we moved a lot, you know she was always there. 

 

0:01:05 – Barnabas

Was there a time in your life and this doesn’t have to be just childhood, like it could be anywhere up to the present day where you sort of feel like there was a period of time or a group of people or a window when friendship was kind of at its sweetest? 

 

0:01:29 – Adam

Like you kind of look back and it has sort of the like you think, like a flashback scene in a movie and it’s kind of got the soft, glowy edges and like everything about it is just sort of a little bit picture perfect. I think there were some friends like that in college for me that I look back and it’s kind of like that was just a really sweet fellowship that we had and I think there’s still friends like that today. But certainly, you know, having a family and stuff changes the dynamic in that and how to grow friendships and all of that. So but yeah, I definitely had. I had a great friend in high school who we just had a lot in common. We hung out together and played in the band together, shot a model rockets off and caused all sorts of mild havoc. 

 

0:01:57 – Barnabas

Did you shoot them off where you are supposed to, or not so much. 

 

0:02:01 – Adam

I mean I didn’t see a sign saying not to. 

 

0:02:04 – Barnabas

That’s fair. Okay, okay, yeah, what is supposed? 

 

0:02:07 – Adam

to anyway, where is there like a model rocket launching field, like it doesn’t exist. So so really, anywhere goes, as long as you’re not in restricted airspace. And we didn’t know that, so hey. 

 

0:02:17 – Barnabas

Professor’s office Perfect yeah. Gym during basketball game even better. 

 

0:02:23 – Adam

Good idea, bad idea here. How about you I? 

 

0:02:28 – Barnabas

didn’t really have a best friend growing up because for you know, I call this God’s kindness on my life there was just always sort of a group of people. So there was three or four or five people who were sort of my tight group of friends. And that changed a little bit. As you know, kids moved away or different. You know, things changed over the years but I but I’ve also frankly just sort of bucked against the idea of best friend because it always felt like that meant all your other friends were junior varsity so if you have a, best friend. 

 

Then you have a bunch of like what? 

 

0:02:57 – Adam

yeah, second rate friends, they’re not as important yeah and that you know. 

 

0:03:02 – Barnabas

I know that’s not what people mean by it, but you’re the one who came up with the question. Right, it was partly, so I could kick the term best friend, you could throw me under the bus. 

 

No, that’s your sister, dude, but no, it’s. This is a. This is an ongoing discussion between my wife and I, because she has a friend she calls her best friend and she doesn’t think it’s at all diminishing to any of her other friends and, frankly, she does not treat any of them as if they’re subpar. So, like she’s living out her version of understanding. I just think the term I’m like that’s not what the term best means. So, uh, that’s neither here nor there and then so it’s more technicality, which is a thing I really enjoy arguing about. Okay, because you know, we asked the question maybe in the first episode about a job that you would have if not this one, and you mentioned a lawyer. Arguing technicalities is what makes me think I might have really enjoyed this, because I love to, like you know, find the little loopholes and get after it. But in terms of a time, like a window of time in my life when friendship was at its best or sweetest, I feel like basically between the ages of like 14 and 25 ish, I mean it was kind of three different groups of friends, because it was my high school friends and then I moved away to college and very quickly developed some close friendships. There’s a four years of college and, and then during college I started serving at a church doing student ministry, and a few of my fellow leaders and I so we served at one church and then all of us, due to various circumstances, moved over to another church. That’s a little preview of another episode we’re going to do later about switching churches. 

 

And even at one point four of us lived in the same apartment building. It was a small six unit building and we took up four of the six apartments and probably made the other two apartments wish that either we would all move out or that they should move out. They were best friends. They were not our best friends, I wouldn’t call them enemies, but I don’t think they thought highly of us at the time. And so those windows of time were all very particular in that it was a high engagement, high physical proximity, low responsibility, like anytime I wasn’t doing something I had to do, my life gravitated around friends and so, yeah, and then I found that as life changed and people grew up and decided to make good business decisions with their work and such, all of that began to diminish. Yeah, like friendships just change once you kind of get out of those environments of ease. 

 

0:05:38 – Adam

Yeah, I think, as I look back on friendships, like some of the closest friends I’ve had are friendships that were like I mean there’s I have a lot of great friendships that are are far formed over, like fun times, you know. But I think some of the best friendships I have are those that are formed from like serving together with people or getting to know people in a context where you’re both doing something, working for the common goal. I think that’s one way that I’ve seen friendships just really grow to a deep level. It’s like if you’re serving in something together, it’s a whole lot easier to connect with people and make friends when you have that context there already. 

 

0:06:16 – Barnabas

Yeah, and that, just that leads me to kind of the first question I want to cover. So, listeners, if you couldn’t tell, in this theme of big life changes, the topic for today is friendship, because this question kind of sets it up at various stages in life how we make friends and the nature of our friendships pretty dramatically changes. For sure, if you are over the age of 30 and listening to this, you will probably have felt at some point recently a pronounced absence of easy friendship. That doesn’t mean you don’t have good friends but, boy? 

 

is it different than it was at 16 or 21. So the question is let’s just give kind of a quick survey of how we make friends at different stages in life, starting with like first grade and kind of working our way on up. 

 

0:06:59 – Adam

Well, I’m glad we’re not starting at like three, because that would be like taking Johnny’s truck because I want it. 

 

0:07:04 – Barnabas

Yeah, I mean, it has to be an age at which you can ask your mom to invite somebody over and I think that generally starts kindergarten, first grade. Yeah, that’s fair. Prior to that, kids don’t really play with each other. 

 

0:07:12 – Adam

They play near each other. Did they call it playdates when we were a kid? 

 

0:07:15 – Barnabas

I don’t remember that term. We just called it playing with other kids. They go up on our curmudgeon moment at some point. It’s not going to be this episode, but I’m filing it away. That I have a play date that phrase is absurd. Or with the dogs, they gotta have a doggy date. No, that’s even dumber. This is anyway. Why are you, why are you making me mad this at this early? 

 

0:07:34 – Adam

in the podcast because it’s fun. 

 

0:07:36 – Barnabas

Um, okay, so first, first, second grade. You know like friendship is basically based on. We discovered we like the same thing. 

 

0:07:45 – Adam

Yeah, you know Common interest. 

 

0:07:46 – Barnabas

Yeah, Like the neighbor kid has a bike, you have a bike. You are now best friend bike buddies, you know yeah. 

 

0:07:53 – Adam

You can ride around the block together. 

 

0:07:55 – Barnabas

Yeah, I mean, or the cul-de-sac, because now we can’t let kids leave our site anymore riding around the block. Yeah, so you know you’ve got that common interest. So you know, like they brought their GI Joe to church, you brought your GI Joe to church Like now you’re best friends. 

 

0:08:09 – Adam

Legos are where it’s at man. 

 

0:08:10 – Barnabas

Oh man, I just put a bin of Legos up in our attic because we are between ages of kids. Yeah, I did not get rid of them. 

 

0:08:20 – Adam

That’s wise. 

 

0:08:21 – Barnabas

They are filed away for future use, because Legos are in fact the best, yeah. And then you get into, like later, elementary school and you develop sort of some relational like instead of just stuff, we do this, we’ll do whatever stuff. Together you develop a little bit of relational context. So there’s, it’s not like third graders, fifth graders, are talking about life, but they’re like whispering their little secrets to each other and, you know, making that kind of friendship. 

 

0:08:44 – Adam

I did this this week, you know I enjoyed that yeah. 

 

0:08:47 – Barnabas

Then you get into middle school, and I don’t think anybody actually has friends in middle school as far as I can tell. 

 

0:08:51 – Adam

Man, I was horrible in middle school. Everybody’s horrible in middle school. I mean I was like I was really mean, like I would tie people’s shoelaces to their chairs. I’m serious, be like I’m gonna tie it. So let me everybody get out. The bell would ring. You know, everybody get up. 

 

0:09:06 – Barnabas

They got a class and this person face plants and everybody laughs and everybody, and then they can never come to school again. 

 

0:09:09 – Adam

That’s how that wipe out, like three deaths on the way down I mean it was it was not great, but yeah, I don’t recommend it. 

 

0:09:16 – Barnabas

But I mean, yeah, junior high was was rough for me as far as, yeah, I feel like junior high, so I’m not commending this show, nor have I even watched much of it, but I did read some of the books. 

 

So middle school feels like game of thrones and or hunger games, where the entire, the entire emphasis is on survival just trying to make it through and so if you befriend somebody else, it is they’re not your friend, they’re your ally, until one of you turns your back on the other, like there. There will be a betrayal at this point, which is why, when, like when my daughters at various points have been like I hate that person, I’m like they might be your best friend when you’re a sophomore in high school, like things can change, yeah, like y’all are living in a fog of insanity right now, so nobody has friends in middle school. 

 

I think we can agree with that, like you, just sort of make it it through. 

 

0:10:04 – Adam

No I definitely had. 

 

0:10:05 – Barnabas

I definitely had a few friends, but what stood out was that they were the ones who didn’t feel like everything was like a rivalry Like these are just kind of okay, we can be ourselves around these people. Yeah, then you get into high school and, like, you get the dawning of real friendship where you’re figuring out, actually sharing what’s going on in my creative thought and my heart and my emotions and boy, are there a lot of emotions at that stage in life? 

 

0:10:31 – Adam

Yeah, for sure. 

 

0:10:32 – Barnabas

You gain a little bit of freedom and you can start to invest in other people. So like, hey, we can make plans. Like this is wild, we can make plans, we can do something. We’re going to go to Chili’s and never tip the waitress enough, that kind of thing I we’re going to go to Chili’s and never tip the waitress enough. 

 

0:10:50 – Adam

That kind of thing. I mean I bet waitresses at places like Chili’s just hate it when a group of high schoolers come in. Well, I mean, that probably does happen. 

 

0:10:53 – Barnabas

I got to say Well, I worked youth group and the only restaurant that wasn’t fast food that could seat a group was Chili’s anywhere near the church. I actually got myself in pretty significant credit card debt covering the cost of high school kids who didn’t bring enough money, okay, or who didn’t bring enough money to pay and tip Right, like I got $12, and the meal was $9.99, and the tax makes it $11.34. I’m like, well, fine, I will tip for you because otherwise we will never be welcome back here again. 

 

It’s good of you to be concerned and not just leave the waitress hanging there. Oh, I’d heard too many of the like the worst customers are church people and I was like I will not be that person. 

 

0:11:30 – Adam

I waited tables at many places and it can be tough. Yeah, you want to have good testimony. 

 

0:11:34 – Barnabas

Yeah, so, okay. So then you get high school, then you get into college and college is feels very adult At least that was my experience but when you look back on it you’re like, oh, that was like kind of the perfect Petri dish of friendship, in that you are mature enough to talk about real life things. But nothing else in life is quite real, because you’re living every moment of every day alongside people, which never happens again, and particularly at places like a Christian college or if you’re at a university with a Christian ministry. There’s sort of a commonality of belief and purpose, so there’s sort of a built in safety zone. 

 

I guess this context of friendship is particular and so you develop really significant friendships then, and some of my college friends remain close friends to this day, people who I’d still like. They’re some of the first people I go to with good news or the people I reach out to when I need prayer or whatever it is, I know we all live many states apart from one another. If at any point I give a description and you’re like that was not at all my experience, I would love to hear it. 

 

0:12:45 – Adam

No, I think you’re pretty close, like those. Things just grow over the years and as the older you get, the more that your friendship is based in deeper things. Right, just because you’re realizing what the different parts of your being like, how you think, what you actually enjoy, who you are All of those things are changing and what you actually require out of friendship the level of trust, the level of the friend being there for you in times of need those requirements all increase as you get older too, because you realize different things. 

 

0:13:21 – Barnabas

Yeah, everything’s a little higher stakes. The friend who sees you through a breakup when you’re a sophomore in high school. It’s very different when you break up with somebody as a sophomore junior in college, cause, like that person in high school, you’re like, oh, puppy love, that stinks in college. You’re like, tell us what you really think. I mean sorry, I may have seen some kids go through breakups with very little sympathy, um, in college though, like that’s on the verge of, or maybe had fallen in love with. 

 

There’s a potential future there. So the, the friend who sees you through that breakup, or the friends who are walking with you through through deeper waters, tell me if you had an experience like this in college, where you’re like you’re just sitting around until two, three, 4.00 AM talking about like anything ranging from philosophy to love, to future, to career aspirations, aspirations to like. I mean it’s just these sweeping, epic types of conversations with these people who you’re like. I mean it doesn’t get better than this. 

 

0:14:22 – Adam

Yeah, I think you discover more about yourself and about other people than you knew was existent, and you have opportunity there to you know, talk about things that before just weren’t even on your radar as being that important to discuss, and now that you’re seeing different views and you’re understanding the world in different ways, where you have to then process that, and so your friends are a big part of that processing of how do I think? Who am I? What was my outlook on life? 

 

0:14:48 – Barnabas

One of the aspects of that not to get too far afield for me was college is one of the first times you encounter usually people who come from very different backgrounds than you do. So you know cause, if you grew up in a place and you went to school alongside people in that place like there’s often diversity, but like it’s kind of a small circle and then you get to college and you’re like, oh, you grew up in a different country or you grew up in a different, profoundly different. Like, oh, you grew up Amish or whatever, like we are not the same. So when we become friends now there’s like a clash of worldviews. That then is reshaping everything. And then my experience post-college is like college for me anyway, had a long tail, in part because I stayed in the area. 

 

0:15:31 – Adam

Okay. 

 

0:15:31 – Barnabas

And so I went to Wheaton college and it’s in the Chicago area, so that gets the kind of place people can stay pretty easily. You know, if you go to college in a small town everyone leaves, but in Chicago, like, there’s a lot of jobs and a lot of possibility to stay close, and so a lot of the friends who I had then I stayed near to, and also a number of them were through church and so we also stayed connected through that way and so I had another five to seven years of pretty close friendship with those people, which I don’t know is normal, but but still it. It was sort of like, uh, college extended in terms of. I mean, at this point I got married shortly out of college. 

 

We had our first daughter pretty early, so it wasn’t that I stayed like single and living like a frat boy life at all. I was working full time, married kids, but proximity, same people prior, invested, depth, and so that friendship kind of skated along. And then where I hit the like we’re talking about big life changes. It was at 30 years old when I took the job in Nashville and we moved, yeah, and I realized, no, I had started to feel the decline in friendships because of mostly geography people moving away, more kids being born Like life is kind of pulling us apart. 

 

0:16:48 – Adam

Yeah. 

 

0:16:49 – Barnabas

No antagonism or anything. 

 

0:16:50 – Adam

Yeah, no fault of anyone, just the reality of people being spread out and things moving on. 

 

0:16:55 – Barnabas

Which is a thing, by the way, that I think adults with families need to give ourselves a lot more mercy about. I’m not a big fan of like you should forgive yourself but like there’s a sense in which we have expectations for friendships in our lives that are absurd and unrealistic, because now, in some ways, we definitely need to raise the bar for friendship I think we talked about that in a minute and in other ways, I think we need to lower our expectations to a realistic level, which is, look, if you’re like 32 with three kids, you do not have time for coffee with somebody twice, twice a week in the morning, or to have friends over until 11 PM once or twice a week. Like that’s not happening. 

 

So, friendship needs to be shaped differently. That’s okay. So, anyway, moved to Nashville at 30 and knew nobody. I moved for a job and that was it. And I got here and I was like I don’t even know how to make friends. I’m a 30 year old man who has had the same friends more or less since I was 18. And I don’t know how to make friends. I don’t know what to do. Not like I don’t know how to talk to people, but like you haven’t had to start from ground zero. 

 

0:18:06 – Adam

Yeah, I haven’t started at zero. 

 

0:18:07 – Barnabas

It was 10 years ago ago now, so that began my thinking on friendships at different stages, the different nature of friendships, things like that. How have you experienced friendships changing as you’ve sort of gone through different stages and you you’ve as we’ve talked about you’ve had some very different geographical aspects to your life that shape things too yeah, I mean to be truthful, I was always like the nerd. 

 

0:18:32 – Adam

I mean I still am right, but nerds are cool. Now I’m the digital technology director, so I mean I’m still a nerd Like I. That’s kind of where I just have always been. So, like you know, I was never like in the popular crowd or whatever, but I still had friends who enjoyed stuff that we did like shooting off rockets, friends who enjoyed stuff that we did like shooting off rockets. 

 

But those friendships changed over the years and you know I still see them on Facebook or whatever, and it’s not that they’re not out there, but certainly, especially these last let’s say the last several years, I feel like friendships have gotten harder to find huh and it’s like to maintain it is different and I don’t know how much that is a result of 2020 and everything that went on there and people closing themselves off in many different ways, and and I’m not saying that everybody did that wrong, I’m just saying I think that part of that, like that, affected us in ways that I think are still continuing today. 

 

0:19:29 – Barnabas

I okay. I have a slightly different take on 2020. Okay, and I’m not at all confident that I’m right, but my observation is that I don’t know how that 2020 changed us as much as that exposed us. 

 

0:19:41 – Adam

Okay. 

 

0:19:42 – Barnabas

Yeah, that’s fair. I would agree with that. I think we were terrible at friendships before that, but we had a rhythm of life that gave us the veneer of friendship. There’s a group of people we get together with for dinner once a week. 2020, that’s gone and it hasn’t restarted. Oh, we stunk at friendship. No, you stunk at friendship before because those weren’t friends, because there wasn’t a sharing of life. 

 

0:20:06 – Adam

It was a chit chat about the news or about our kids, or about sports, while we eat tacos, yeah, and I love that point about the sharing of life, because those friends who I did share life with before 2020 are still friends. Yeah, they’re the ones who saw you through, they’re the ones who still I can call up and say, hey, you know, I got a leak at my house, can you come help me? Or whatever it may be, and they’ll be there. 

 

0:20:32 – Barnabas

And they’re the ones who figured out, like when there were restrictions and we’re not giving any opinions on what we think about restrictions whatever when there were restrictions on spatial distance and number of people. They’re the ones who you were like okay, fine, we’ll do a bonfire and we’ll sit appropriate distance apart. 

 

0:20:53 – Adam

And we’ll just but we will still see one another. That one Right We’ll make. Figure out a way to make it happen. I had brain surgery in 2020, November of 2020. So, like I got to see, just as a result of the friends that we had, even though we weren’t at their house every day or whatever, like those friends loved on my family in ways that I can’t even begin to tell you Like it would bring tears to my eyes just to tell you how many of these people came out and show their love for our family. Yeah, and like those people are always there and they are still there and I just I love that part of the friendship. But I do think 2020, had it, forced us in so many ways to huddle up with our family. It did some great things for some families. It also did some terrible things for families families it also did some terrible things for families. That-. 

 

0:21:32 – Barnabas

Or things weren’t good to begin with, weren’t good to begin with, and it just accelerated that, but I think it also like coming out of that. 

 

0:21:39 – Adam

Now you have to still like break out of that shell and be like okay, now, how do I make good friendships with new people? And I have some great friends who I’ve made since then, but again it’s working at it, it’s not just sitting down and saying, hey, you know what’s your favorite food, and yeah, you know it’s a small talk, it’s. It’s those people that have been able to dive deeper with and be vulnerable to and ask for help and things. 

 

0:22:01 – Barnabas

Yeah, fascinating to hear you talk about that, like the intentionality and I want to get to that in just a second. Like this seems to be the question that comes up often, like why is it so hard to make and have friends as an adult? And I think it has to do with what you just said Every time period prior to independent adulthood so let’s just say age 30. Okay, because, and for a lot of people it starts well, it starts in the twenties, but there’s a lot of that sort of residual friendship from college et cetera. Every time period prior to that you are thrown in with friends and the momentum of life carries you alongside other people or toward other people. Every other time in life is like that, unless you actively pull away, so elementary school, middle school, high school, college, and so you are going with somebody that the tide of life is pulling you along together. 

 

Then you get into independent adulthood, particularly if you get married and have kids, although maybe not particularly, maybe that’s just maybe. Those are just variables and the tide of life is pulling you away from other people. I could go weeks without having a meaningful conversation with another adult I’m not related to. I mean, realistically, I can go weeks without having a meaningful conversation with another adult I’m not related to. I mean, realistically, I can go weeks without having a meaningful conversation with my wife, but that would be an act of betrayal. So for how many people is that true? Like when was the last time they sat down and poured out their heart in some way? 

 

0:23:27 – Adam

And. 

 

0:23:28 – Barnabas

I don’t mean like oversharing, but just like man, this is weighing heavily on me. I’m struggling with this about parenting, or I’m struggling with this about work, or about my identity, or about my self image, you know, with somebody who doesn’t share your gene pool or your last name, and it’s not that that person has to have all the answers for you. 

 

0:23:48 – Adam

So much of it is just being able to be there and being willing to take the time to listen and not be distracted by other things and just show hey, I care about what you’re having to say, I may not have answers. 

 

0:24:01 – Barnabas

And, as a believer, there’s a very ready response. If you have no answers which is, I mean, at some level we can always say me too. So your struggle might not be exactly my struggle, but the category is something I understand. Right, you’re very fed up with this thing and I’m like I don’t know what that thing is, but I’m very, I have been very fed up. So I know that the feeling, yeah, right, which means me too, and then I do know the one who can help us through this and so you can lift that person up. Like, bearing one another’s burdens doesn’t mean solving problems for others. 

 

Most of the time it usually means coming alongside and saying you can lean on my faith a little bit and I will pray with you. I will pray for you, we will pray together and we’ll hand some of this over to the Lord. And, like in Christian friendship, that has to be a substantial part of it or else it’s a subpar friendship. 

 

0:24:48 – Adam

It’s not as full as God designed it to be. Yeah, and I like what you say about bearing one another’s burdens, because I do think that, as we bear one another’s burdens, I think a lot of times we want to think of that as like a once and done thing, like, oh, they went through this hard time. Yeah, they had a bad day. I was here for them. 

 

0:25:03 – Barnabas

It’s not lifting a box for somebody. 

 

0:25:04 – Adam

And then, okay, I moved them in, I’m good or whatever. But I think the real relationships, the real deep friendships, are those friendships where you’ve had an issue or a trial or just something that they know is difficult for you in the way you view yourself or you view God, and they are just walking with you through that. Yeah, even though it’s hard and even though it may be months long, like those type of friendships. I’m not discounting helping people at once. I’m certainly not. Certainly I’ve been the receiver of many of those folks and I’m super blessed, but that continuous like I haven’t, I didn’t. 

 

0:25:44 – Barnabas

That might be Christian love without friendship, though. 

 

0:25:46 – Adam

For those people I’m talking about. It’s not like a token, like I give you this and then I forget about you, like they’re still there in my life, but I do think it is easy for us, for myself, even to be like, okay, well, you’ve got this need. I’ll come help you in this crisis. You know, next week you’ll be out of it, and then I just go back to my way of living. 

 

0:26:05 – Barnabas

And that friend and I think that’s something that I see in my own life that I’m busy with other things, I’ve got other things going on, and yet that’s what I mean like the gravity of life, the tug of life pulls us away from other people, unless and that that comes back to what you were saying about intentionality Cause when I think about adult friendships, so fully mature people I mean I shouldn’t say fully mature, all of us should be maturing all the time but grown people taking on the responsibilities of life, trying to just handle our business, trying to take care of a family, take care of a job, do the necessary things in life, also living in a culture of profound individualism. I do not need anybody. That’s sort of the posture of America. And transience people move all the time, yeah. 

 

And digital communication, which muddies the waters profoundly because it means you can stay very connected to people You’re not near and be distracted from people who are near and they’re in. Done that and I don’t know. I’m not trying to say a moral statement about that, as much as to say it’s very confusing. Like is it wrong to keep up with old friends via digital communication? 

 

No, confusing, like is it wrong to keep up with old friends via digital communication? No, not at all. However, if you live in a place and all of your friendships are FaceTime calls with somebody where you used to live, and you don’t know the names of people you go to church with, or your next door neighbor or your coworkers, and you never have dinner with anybody, that’s probably indicative of a problem. 

 

0:27:30 – Adam

Yeah, and I think that’s something we’ll probably talk about in the church episode that we do. But you as a pastor and I certainly heard it when I was a pastor people are like, well, I just I don’t feel connected, right, and that whole conversation can be something that we look at later. But I know I’ve been guilty of this and this, like the Lord brought to my mind as you were talking, is like it’s easy for relationships to be like a checklist, transactional, like okay, I know I need to check in on this person, so I shoot him a text how are you today? You know what’s going on. Then I feel like I’ve gotten the burden off my back of having to check in on them, Right, yeah, it’s like you’ve. 

 

0:28:09 – Barnabas

It’s like tennis. You’ve returned serve. 

 

0:28:11 – Adam

Right, so now it’s on their court right, that’s a good, that’s a good analogy. But that’s not being a good friend. Right, it may be some level of a friendship, but being a good friend is going to ask good questions and really try and get deeper into their lives about what’s going on, as opposed to just how are you doing today? Are you hanging in there? 

 

0:28:32 – Barnabas

Yeah, you know, I think in the episode we did on on work and changing jobs, one of the things we talked about was the whole perspective we have on God’s design for work and how we just get that so backwards in our secular. 

 

American culture, in our secular American culture. I think the same is often true for friendship, but maybe more subtly. So I’m going to give a few different sort of vignettes of conversations I’ve had with people, all of whom are faithful Christian people. They are genuinely seeking deep friendships and they don’t realize that the words that are coming out of their mouth actually resemble something else, and so they’re like oh, that means that you, that you have an expectation that actually sits outside of what’s real and maybe what’s biblical. So I was talking to one woman. She’s in her thirties, single, had moved to Nashville, had done a really wonderful job of deeply connecting with community. Like she had not sort of hung around the fringes, she had gotten involved in more formal groups, she had formed some friendships, and she came up after service one Sunday and was wanting some advice and then some prayer because she was really frustrated, because she felt like her friendships weren’t very genuine, and I was like okay, help me understand what you mean by that. 

 

0:29:41 – Adam

Cause are you saying the people aren’t genuine? Yeah. 

 

0:29:43 – Barnabas

And what she said was and even as she was saying, I had to kind of see, like her, the gears turning in her mind. She’s like okay, so when I lived in the city where she used to live, I just had kind of a rhythm with my friends. We would like text each other and be like, hey, do you want to come over tonight? And so it was kind of built on spontaneity and availability. She’s like I feel like now here, like I can get coffee in two weeks. 

 

She’s like that doesn’t feel genuine to me, Like putting you on a schedule like your calendar event for them. 

 

Calendar and I was like, okay, on the one hand, I can kind of see and understand why you feel that way, because it’s very different, but on the other hand, like how is coffee at 9am in two weeks less valuable than wine in your living room at 8 pm tonight? Like those are not different things, it’s just that one of them took intentionality and the other just happened. And so if our standard for friendship is it just needs to happen, okay. Nothing worthwhile in life happens without intentionality. We have created a context, I think, often, where if it takes planning and it’s on the calendar, it feels forced. 

 

Yeah, well, no, I have to put things on the calendar with my wife, like if we want to go on a date, it is not spontaneous, yeah. 

 

0:31:00 – Adam

It’s oftentimes planned for us, yeah. 

 

0:31:02 – Barnabas

It’s absolutely looking at the calendar and finding those windows of time, it’s like, okay, the kids have their things going on that evening. We don’t have obligations that evening. We do have the budget. Let’s go out to eat. 

 

0:31:13 – Adam

It’s one of those rare days. 

 

0:31:14 – Barnabas

Yeah, we’re going to go out to eat, we’re going to go shop and we’re going to go do whatever and like, make a date out of it, and so it has to be planned and that’s that doesn’t diminish us in any way. 

 

0:31:33 – Adam

It’s actually very beneficial because it is taking the time to add something into their calendar so that they have time for you. 

 

0:31:35 – Barnabas

Like there’s a value to that for sure, yeah, so another vignette and this is for multiple people is the posture of people thinking you should invite me, and often it’s people like in the church context. It’s often people who are newer. They’ve been around just a few months and they’re like nobody has invited me over and I want to be like how many people have you invited over? Like just cause you’re new doesn’t mean you can’t take initiative and you know so. People who hover around the edges and wait to be invited in instead of introducing themselves and just kind of finding their way in. And what I don’t mean is like being a profound extrovert who cannonballs into the middle of things but, even just a. 

 

You find somebody else who’s also sort of hovering and just be like hey, I’m Adam, we haven’t met before. Hey, I’m Barnabas, we haven’t met before, and like see what conversation happens and that. So that’s something that I see and I go okay. This is another instance where I think we have misunderstood how community and friendship works, where we’re treating it like it’s a customer service interaction. I walk in, you’re supposed to come up and say can I help you find anything? 

 

0:32:38 – Adam

Yeah. 

 

0:32:39 – Barnabas

As opposed to, this is a two-way communication and if they’re not coming to me, I should go to them. 

 

0:32:43 – Adam

Yeah, you have to. You have to build some of what you want there, right? I mean you can’t just expect it all to come to you Like it’s just all handed out to you. You have to seek out friendship. I mean you can’t just wait and assume that, oh, I’m going to have friends just because I’m here. You have to, and with intention. 

 

0:33:02 – Barnabas

Nor can you give up on a group of people just because being there hasn’t formed friendships. One of the things that you have to look at is what have I invested? And if you think showing up is investing, your bar is too low and I understand that that could be potentially offensive to somebody who we were talking about this off mic, the prevalence of introversion these days and introversion as one category of thing I believe in in terms of like the gaining energy from withdrawing for a little while, recharging, you know those kinds of things. 

 

But introversion as an excuse to not invest in relationship is wrong. And so that type of thing where you think, well, I invested because I tried, I showed up, that’s not an investment to the extent that it needs to be made. That’s not how friendships are made. 

 

0:33:56 – Adam

Now I will also I mean that comes down to that really simple verse, right? He that has friends must show himself friendly. It’s not just being there, it’s the act of showing kindness and concern for others. To build that. 

 

0:34:08 – Barnabas

And I will also say there are plenty of groups of people who are unwelcoming and oblivious. 

 

0:34:13 – Adam

Yeah, it does happen. We’re all selfish. 

 

0:34:15 – Barnabas

So if you show up selfish and they are selfish, this is not going to go well. If you show up selfish and they’re unselfish, they can pull you in. If you show up unselfish and they’re selfish, you can find your way in. Somebody has to be unselfish for this thing to work, because somebody has to take the risk of basically saying I’m going to get some egg on my face by just talking to the new person, or being a new person who talks. 

 

0:34:37 – Adam

Yeah, that’s. I mean there’s an aspect of that. That’s just humility, right? Yes, like I am going to choose to humble myself and just try and be there and interact and I will do my best to make that happen. Now it’s hard and I think many times there has to be some grace, because people don’t know always how to how to flesh that out. Yeah, I know there’s been times in my life I’m like I don’t know if this is appropriate in this context or like if that’s too pushy at this point to ask them, you know, whatever at their family and so you have to like there is, every culture is a little different. 

 

0:35:07 – Barnabas

I know I have found that a little bit of awkward is very forgivable. Silence is often unforgivable. 

 

0:35:16 – Adam

We will say you have to embrace the awkward. That’s a phrase at our house Like okay, it’s awkward, yeah, but go do it, go at it, make it not awkward by your buying into reaching out. You know, sometimes that’s what has to happen and it’s not fun, it’s not easy and it is laying yourself out there to potentially be hurt to some extent Right, but it is also showing that’s how we show God’s love is to reach out to people even when they’re not first on our list of being the most inviting to us eras where there were more natural gatherings of people, where friendships could happen. 

 

0:35:58 – Barnabas

Church was a more prevalent part of society. Office places people were gathered in office places or work places, whatever those are. There were sort of just these gatherings that fed that opportunity differently. But one thing has always remained true is that somebody has to go first. It’s kind of like what you were saying, embracing the awkward, and in this day, asking somebody to do a friend activity feels like asking somebody on a date. You know it’s basic, you don’t? 

 

0:36:25 – Adam

know what the rejection is going to be right. 

 

0:36:26 – Barnabas

Yeah, and I mean the cost is low. I mean that’s the thing is. We often build it up in our mind oh, this is going to be so awkward, it’s like no worst-case scenario. They’re like no thanks, like okay, move on. But I mean there’s a real sense in which you’re like okay, we’ve kind of had a couple of conversations. I like hanging out with this person. Everything’s good. At some point just go. Hey man, I don’t think I have your cell phone number. I’d love to grab lunch sometime or get coffee or whatever. You’re like be like hey, you know, we were talking about it earlier. I like, I like hiking. Maybe a few of us could get some folks together, the two of us get some folks together and go hiking this weekend. But like just take the step of getting contact information and then reaching out to follow up. Like it’s that easy to initiate. 

 

0:37:06 – Adam

I think sometimes we overcomplicate that process right. We second guess ourselves, we wonder if we’re doing it right. Quick question for you how many close friends do you think it’s possible to really maintain? Oh, it’s a great question. 

 

0:37:19 – Barnabas

I was actually thinking about the same thing earlier, sort of, especially with the muddiness of long distance friendships and stuff. 

 

0:37:24 – Adam

I mean, I’ve been in church settings where folks are like, well, you know, everybody should be caring for this one person. But I know from the pastoral perspective that there’s this group of people of you know, the pastoral perspective that there’s this group of people of you know, a dozen, you know maybe total, uh, with their families or 20, you know, and they, they all are in each other’s lives and those pockets of people are serving each other. But then there’s sometimes that people are like, well, shouldn’t everybody be serving that one person? And is that even realistic? Because how many people can you actually? You can’t serve all you know, hundreds of people in a church. So how do you flesh that out? 

 

0:37:57 – Barnabas

And that actually probably leaves somebody else stranded, because then eyes are not on where the other needs are in the church. 

 

Like everybody needs to be aware of whatever’s going on around them. So that’s part of the reason connectedness counts. I don’t know the answer to your question because there’s probably not a hard number. I’m sure psychologists would tell us a number because of averages and statistics which might be helpful. I do think Jesus is a helpful model, though. He spent three years with 12 dudes, yeah, and three of whom were his closest companions. Now, I don’t think that means we shoot for three in 12. But what it does mean is there is a limit. Yeah, we have limits, and it’s okay to have limits. 

 

0:38:34 – Adam

So him actually exercising that limit was evidence of his humanity right. 

 

0:38:39 – Barnabas

Yeah, I think the fact that Jesus didn’t have 38 apostles tells you that the most loving, patient, compassionate, understanding, tireless friend who ever lived also could only maintain 12 good friends, one of whom betrayed him also could only maintain 12 good friends, one of whom betrayed him says something about our capacity to be a good friend to a wide circle, and what that doesn’t mean is we then get to start cutting people off with our boundaries Absolutely. 

 

It doesn’t mean we can be cliquish and not ever interact, but it does mean that I can think of 15 people off the top of my head who I would love to be closer friends with through our church Couples and men who I think these are just awesome folks. It’s not in my capacity to befriend them deeply, yeah, but you know, if life was to change a little bit, maybe they move to our side of town or we start serving in a more close way instead of kind of in different areas of the church, like all of a sudden I bet we would be super close friends and so, having the category in our mind of, like I love them, I wish we could be closer friends, and that’s probably one of those things that should make us think you know what’s going to be awesome Heaven, oh yeah. 

 

Because the capacity for friendship in heaven is going to be really different, because there won’t be sin and fatigue and there is eternity, which means you’ve got a lot more time to get to know people. 

 

0:40:01 – Adam

So, yeah, I think I like that answer. It’s a good answer. 

 

0:40:04 – Barnabas

I think Jesus’s example is a helpful paradigm, not model. 

 

0:40:09 – Adam

So maybe it releases some people from that feeling that like I have to be close friends with everyone or I’m not living life well, feeling that like I have to be close friends with everyone or I’m not living life well, if we understand you know, how Jesus lived, yeah, and the amount of people he he had close to him kind of helps some people who are, like you know, the total extroverts who want to befriend everybody, realize, okay, I want to be a good friend. 

 

I really got to focus in on, you know, reaching this group of people serving, yeah, and and here’s the. 

 

0:40:35 – Barnabas

The church needs extroverts and the church Absolutely. Church needs introverts, like because they are very different yeah, they’re very different energies and skill sets to connect with people. The person who can go quietly sit down next to the loner and just have a 15 minute conversation and then sort of quietly go their separate ways is a profound gift to the church, absolutely. And the person who is pinballing all over the church and talks to 52 people and like just raises the joy level also a profound gift to the church and everything in between. So one last thought before we wrap this up not because the conversation hasn’t been awesome, but because listeners probably have other things to do is Sam Albury, who’s one of the pastors at our church and dear friend and a really wise man. 

 

We were talking about friendship and connectedness recently in a meeting among the pastors and he posed the question sort of a self-evaluation question, which I thought, man, this is such a really helpful question in terms of gauging the health of a friendship or the closeness of a friendship. Who do you know who really knows how to pray for you? And the example that he gave is not like the person who he’s not he’s. So what he said was. I’m not talking about the person who asks like, hey, how can I pray for you? Right, that’s one thing, but the person who hears a piece of news and understands how that would affect you, a person who hears a piece of news and understands how that would affect you. 

 

0:41:58 – Adam

So they’re. They’re deeply acquainted with your life. 

 

0:41:59 – Barnabas

They’re acquainted with your life, so the example he gave You’re not even talking about like a prayer warrior. 

 

0:42:03 – Adam

You’re just talking about someone who understands what’s going on in your life so that they can connect A to B. 

 

0:42:08 – Barnabas

Yeah, so, so he for the example he gave was. He said uh, you know, the thought crossed my mind recently. He’s like I heard that there was a whole bunch of kids in the kids ministry who had come down with flu, he said. And there was a couple different families I thought of. I was like I don’t even know if their kids were sick. 

 

But he’s like, oh, that might affect TJ, who’s our lead pastor, in his preparation of sermon. Like if his kids got sick, that’s going to affect him and them and the ministry and that kind of thing. And so he has an awareness of the stresses and the particularities of life such that when he hears an unrelated piece of news it turns his mind and his heart to lift them up. And I thought, you know that, is that the standard for friendship? No, but it is a really helpful gauge of, a how well do you know somebody and how well do they know you? And B are you friends before the Lord? Because it’s turning towards prayer, not just oh, man, I wonder if they’re okay, which is a really sweet thought, but not lifting them up. 

 

So I just thought that metric kind of to self-evaluate friendship was really helpful. 

 

0:43:10 – Adam

Yeah, that’s good. 

 

0:43:11 – Barnabas

Good stuff. All right, listeners. It is that time of the podcast when we do our weekly segment, the curious question of the week. This is when we pose a question to let our imaginations roam, see what creative stuff comes up, what wild and hairy ideas come out of our mad minds. And the question of the week is if you could have dinner with any three famous people from history, who would they be? 

 

0:43:40 – Adam

I was trying to think about this. This is a tough one, so Barnabas told me that I wasn’t allowed to say Jesus, yeah. 

 

0:43:48 – Barnabas

He can’t say Jesus for two reasons One, because this isn’t Sunday school, and two, because Jesus isn’t a person from history, he’s a person from the present. 

 

0:43:56 – Adam

So there we go. Here’s my pushback. Okay, I won’t say Jesus, because I agree with your statement. However, I think I’d like to meet the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. 

 

0:44:10 – Barnabas

That’s a good answer. 

 

0:44:11 – Adam

Because they had this conversation with Jesus that was like from beginning to end right. 

 

0:44:18 – Barnabas

And I would just love to hear what they said For listeners who might be unfamiliar with the story. Give like the super quick flyover. 

 

0:44:23 – Adam

So after Christ’s resurrection, there’s two disciples on the road, you know, talking about everything that’s happened, wondering how this could even be possible, and just in many ways, you know, discouraged. And Christ shows up. They don’t know, it’s him, and he walks with them and explains to him, from the beginning to the end of the scriptures, all that had to come to pass and everything that happened. I just think his perspective on that conversation would be incredible, and even hearing it secondhand, I’m good with that. So I’m going to take those two. 

 

0:45:06 – Barnabas

More modern history. I don’t know, I’m a kind of like a science nerd, kind of geek, so maybe like Nikola Tesla or Einstein, something like that not biblical at all. Simply because these are people who, in various reading from history and podcasts and different things, their humanity has really intrigued me because I think a lot of figures from history are known for their achievements and these people certainly are that. But also I want to understand the heart and the mind behind the person who did these things. So one is Martin Luther King Jr. 

 

0:45:39 – Adam

Yeah, that would be interesting Because-. 

 

0:45:42 – Barnabas

He actually came to my mind. It’s hard to name a more courageous person. I understand that he was deeply flawed, but just the courage of Martin Luther King Jr is astounding. Similarly, when I was in probably eighth grade, I had to do a biographical research paper and we just got to pick somebody from history and I picked Jackie Robinson and have been enamored with Jackie Robinson and the Brooklyn Dodgers ever since. Not the Los Angeles Dodgers could not care less, but I, just you. 

 

You know, the more you read and learn about Jackie Robinson, the more you you learn about that. You know again the complexities of the whole man devout, Methodist, fierce competitor, obviously courageous, but also not a passive person in the slightest, yeah. So yeah, I think Jackie Robinson is another one. Oh, the third one’s tough. I think I’d go John Steinbeck, simply because Steinbeck’s novels and his non-fiction are among my favorite writings and he might be an utter bore, I don’t know. A lot of times people who write beautifully are absolutely no fun to hang out with, but I think he’s super fascinating and the level of genius that I’m like I don’t know if I get two hours at a table with him. That sounds pretty awesome to me. So maybe Steinbeck. 

 

0:47:02 – Adam

Oh, those are good, all good answers. I definitely some food for thought there. So what about this upcoming curmudgeon moment? Yes, I mean, we had one of these today, yes, and so I, as we were there, I, as we were there, I said, arnis, what do you think about this? I mean, this is kind of curmudgeonly for sure. So bring it on All right. 

 

0:47:18 – Barnabas

So the curmudgeon moment, our concluding segment of the podcast, is when we just take a few moments to delight in being grumpy about something. It’s a chance to get something off our chest, to vent and hopefully, listeners to invite you into our joy in this and also maybe speak on your behalf. Maybe this is a moment of advocacy, is what this is? There you go, and so the moment that Adam was referring to that we encountered earlier today is the self-checkout experience at your average supermarket these days and your below average supermarket really all of them at this point. 

 

0:47:50 – Adam

They’re all the self-checkout, yeah. 

 

0:47:51 – Barnabas

Except for the Dollar General market right by my house. 

 

0:47:53 – Adam

That’s fair. Dollar General does not do that. 

 

0:47:55 – Barnabas

They do not do self checkout Apparently. They still value employing humans but yeah so the self checkout experience you asked me. You just threw it out there earlier. You’re like what do you think about this? I think my answer was something to the effect of I like it because I’m good at it. I worked as a cashier for a number of years and so like checking things out. However, there’s a lengthy list of reasons that I’m also curmudgeonly about self-checkout, the primary one being that other people are not good at it. 

 

0:48:26 – Adam

Well, that does happen, man. I mean, sometimes you wait there. 

 

0:48:29 – Barnabas

Yeah, we’re asking untrained people to do the work of a cashier and it goes about as well as you would expect. I mean, ideally it’s supposed to go faster, but we all know that doesn’t happen all the time. No, ideally it’s supposed to save the supermarkets money Well yes, but there’s that which leads me to my second complaint, which is, if I’m going to be doing the work of their former employees, I should get a discount If you do self-checkout you should get a five to 10% discount because you are the cashier. 

 

0:48:54 – Adam

And a 10% discount because you are the cashier and can you imagine how much longer? I mean the lines are already get long, but I mean 5% off groceries people. That thing would be backed up. Everybody beats self checking out. 

 

0:49:02 – Barnabas

Especially with the cost of everything these days. And then my my third one is there’s this myth that it’s easier, but they’ve actually set the machines up to work against you, because if you’re efficient, you are faster than the machines. 

 

0:49:14 – Adam

So like when it has to like weigh the product after you put it in the bag to make sure there’s something there, that whole thing. 

 

0:49:19 – Barnabas

If you watch the cashiers at a cash register, you know they’re scanning stuff across. 

 

0:49:23 – Adam

It’s like beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. 

 

0:49:24 – Barnabas

Yeah, you just slide it down On the self-checkout machine the fastest you can go is like beep, beep and boy. At some point you’re like I. This is, I got five items and it took me 18 minutes Cause your machine’s slow. Then then okay. So the grocery store closest to my house is a Kroger, which, for those of you who don’t live in the Southeast, it’s just. 

 

0:49:44 – Adam

it’s just like any average grocery store Been there. We got one near us. 

 

0:49:47 – Barnabas

Yeah, so it’s a. So we got a Kroger near us. On an average day, they probably have one or two lanes open with employees at the cash register and then they’ve they’ve like quadrupled their number of self-checkouts. 

 

However, if you have 20 items in your cart, it’s not worth getting behind the three old ladies with 180 items in their cart going through the two checkout lines. So you go, get in self-checkout With the coupons too. Oh yes, wonderful those, those are delightful. So you can’t go fast. And then, if you have over 15 items, the whole thing just freezes up on you and you have to get the one employee who’s staring at their cell phone for an earlier complaint over to to like punch in their code to verify that you can check out. So it’s not self-checkout anymore, it’s like it’s they checked me out, except except I did all their work for them. So yes, these are my thoughts on self-checkout. 

 

0:50:38 – Adam

I have one thought that I’ll share, and then we can be done.

 

0:50:41 – Barnabas

Okay. 

 

0:50:42 – Adam

My one thought is that if Walmart’s going to require me to check myself out, then I should at least be invited to the Walmart employee Christmas party. 

 

0:50:50 – Barnabas

I mean you did the work of an employee Right. 

 

0:50:54 – Adam

So bring it on, bring on the parties. 

 

0:50:55 – Barnabas

I mean, maybe you should stand at the door and greet a few people too. They still have greeters. They just don’t have cashiers anymore. That’s true, the greeters are still hanging around. I mean, I’m in favor of greeters too, so I feel like the self-checkout thing it has. It has jumped the shark in. Like it, it serves a purpose. 

 

It should replace the express lane and you should have to take a test to use it If replace the express lane, and you should have to take a test to use it If you can’t. If you need to ask your grandkids how to download an app on your phone, you don’t get to use self-checkout, I think something along those lines. All right, well, listeners, this has been episode three of the Curious Curmudgeon podcast. We hope it’s been encouraging. I’m sure the last section was super uplifting to your soul, maybe a little bit thought-provoking and at least a little bit entertaining. This one probably leans more thought-provoking hopefully encouraging than entertaining. But who knows, it’ll make some great friends, yeah, but hopefully some food for thought on friendship. And thank you so much for listening and tune in next week.