Friendship...elephantine pining.

There are days when my hunger for friendship supersedes and eclipses all other desires.  The pangs of my pining are ineffable.  They are, no doubt, psuedo-utopian and hopelessly idealistic.  They are so grandiose that I'm not sure they could ever be fully realized this side of heaven, but they are painfully palpable, viscerally moving me out of what is normal and on to a new normal, a neo-normal.  

I hate what is normal, what is ideal, what is unquestioned and accepted as standard fare.  I hate what the world is telling me is customary and typical.  I don't care.  I don't care that our culture is perfectly content with virtual friendship and quasi-community.  I don't care.  I don't care that people don't have as much of an affinity for conversation and meaty, hearty dialogue about deep matters.  I don't care.  I don't care that we are "used to" being alone and lonely in our society.  And I don't care that Christian community offers little more than a passing glance or a brief brush up against one's heart.  Week after week, people can and often do leave church unscathed, unnoticed, unengaged.  Unfortunately, community now means gathering a bunch of people together under one roof for an allotted amount of time for a premeditated formal cause.  That is not community, that is coalescing, that is convening, but that is not community.  Community devoid of friendship is like a body without blood.  

I yearn for friendship, not with everyone, but with someone.  "A man of many friends comes to ruin."  Of that I'm aware.  But a man of no friends is also living in ruins.   

This desire is elephantine inside me today.  I want friends, and I want so much more for the friendships I have.  My heart tells me I'm far from what it could be, and furthermore, what it should be.