Friends

Tonight I was telling my son another story from my childhood. Over the last few weeks we've gotten into the habit of one more story after the lights are off and prayers are said. I did this with my older daughter for a few months when she was younger. Back then, I tried to be creative and make up a story on the spot. They usually had a moral or they were a lesson I thought she needed to hear...something on what she did, or didn't do, that day. Those stories sucked, so that didn't last too long because being genuinely creative isn't one of my gifts. (Plus, I wasn't being as sneaky a Dad as I was hoping, trying to lecture her at bedtime with a narrative.)

With Noah I decided to skip the creative crud and go straight for truth, using a portion of my childhood as a resource. First, its easier on the old noggin then making it up out of whole cloth. Second, I've found that truth - at least in my life -is usually stranger than fiction. So, tonight I was telling my son of another incident from my childhood.

Thinking about it now I realize that I've told stories about:
*a tree house started by a bunch of nine and ten year olds - lots of Dad's tools lost and the house never finished. We could never get the "ladder" boards to stay nailed to the tree.
*having the breath knocked out of me for the first time in a neighborhood football game with Mark, Jimmy, Brian, and Stephen (it was one of a hundred I played in with the same friends).
*finding a couple of silver coins with my brother on a dead-end street in our neighborhood - it was better than Treasure Island (Stephen, what ever happened to those?).
*one good friend, Jimmy, sledding into a parked car one sparkling January day when school was closed because of snow. Jimmy was a smiler, but even then I wondered about his mental state. I think he had to have a few stiches.
*making a game out of walking - more like shuffling - out on a frozen lake until the ice began to crack. Mark was the lightest so he usually won, but Jimmy, Brian, Stephen and I kept at it...Stacy tried it once.

There are a few stories I'm reserving for a better time, like: Throwing snowballs at passing cars; looking at my first Playboy which Jason stole from his father's stash...[ahem, cough, snif] "Did I say first, I meant only...my only Playboy;" crawling a few hundred yards through a sewer drain -using flashlights -every day after school for two weeks until one of the guys mom's caught us and told all our parents, so we had to quit; Stacy accidently loosing his two front teeth to a 7-iron as eight kids chopped at golf balls one summer evening in my front yard. There are a bunch of stories I'm not ready to tell, because he's not ready to hear. Although most of this rant has been about stories, that is not what pricked my heart this evening.

Tonight, after the latest childhood revelation, I went to brush my teeth (Noah probably wishes I'd done that before the story). While working up a good minty foam, I was remembering again the event I'd told to Noah. There they were, the same bunch of friends. Over and over again the same names and faces flashed in my memory. Some of the best times in my childhood were spent with those friends. I did some of the dumbest things with those friends. I had some of the greatest laughs with those friends. New adventures were undertaken with those friends, and lots of physical pain was felt with those friends.

It's been awhile since I've put as much energy into a friendship as when I was a kid. That is my loss. (Recently, there were so many people in Temple that I intentionally shut out of my life because I wasn't in a "place" where I could be a good friend. I'm sorry.) Yet, there is nothing to stop me from having just as great a time toady as I had in my childhood, only with new friends. We all need friends. Friends are people you share with. Not just your material stuff, but your life. You share life with friends at all levels: dumb things, funny things, new adventures and even pain.

One night in an ancient, upstairs, garage apartment, one man talked to eleven other men about this subject. "The greatest way to show love for friends is to die for them. You are my friends... Servants don't know what their master is doing, and so I don't speak to you as my servants. I speak to you as my friends..." (John 15). Those men heard Jesus call them friend. What an honor to be his friend (I can't wait to hear him say it to me). What an honor to have the grand title "Friend" bestowed on you by anyone!

Yep, I'm gonna do it. It's going to take some work, but from now on its gonna be good times and good friends. So, anyone up for a walk on the ice?