Friendship as the Root of Spirituality

Recently, I have been reading a book by Nicholas Christakis entitled, Blueprint, with a subtitle, The Evolutionary Origins of a Good Society.  It was published in 2019.  Frank Bruni, who writes for the New York Times, describes the book as “A dazzling erudite synthesis of history, philosophy, anthropology, genetics, sociology, economics, epidemiology, statistics, and more.”  “Yep, that’s about it,” I say!  

Christakis is Professor of Social and Natural Science, as well as Professor of Internal Medicine at the Yale Medical School.  It is a fascinating look at common themes looked at from the perspective of evolution and across the entire globe.  He deals with shipwrecks and contemporary ethnographical studies of some places on the earth I never heard of.  One theme he considers that I have a great deal of interest in is friendship.

Not surprisingly, friendship is common in all societies across our world---it is universal.  He looks broadly at friendship in animals, which is not surprising if you think about evolution.  After all, we share significant genetic overlap with other species.  That said, Christakis moves to the human being and considers the role of friends in our lives.  In so doing, he makes a number of comments that are noteworthy, which I would like to share.

The first comment is a no-brainer.  He says, “Friendship is powerful.”  I was intrigued with his quotation of Dan Gilbert, who notes that “friendship is a key determinant of happiness.” (223)  It makes sense to me.  I have taught a class on spiritual friendship and usually students enjoy that extended look at something often taken for granted.  And so, I have a pretty good definition of friendship.  However, I was interested in his definition, which I share.  He says that “friendship is a typically volitional, long-term relationship, ordinarily between unrelated individuals, that involves mutual affection and support, possibly asymmetric, especially in times of need.”  As I think about this, I am good with it.  

Other things he brings to us is more surprising or simply not things I have thought about.  An example of this was his point informing us that “real friendships are based not on what each party can do for the other (mutual aid or usefulness), but how each party feels about the other (mutual goodwill or sentiment).”  As I thought about this one, I realized it was an important insight.  Of course, friends do things for each other.  But it is interesting that how we feel about each other is primary.  It makes sense that it is easier to do something for a friend if I feel positive about him or her.  

Another angle I found both interesting and helpful was Christakis’ look at how even small kids form friendships.  He tells us that kids five to about nine “focus on shared activities or superficial rewards.” (228)  I think about all the playdates we had with our two girls, even when they were little.  Friendships could be fickle at that age and Christakis helps me see why that might be true.  He tells us that at about age nine, children begin to form “more abstract notions of friendship, such as loyalty and trust, and recognize the duties and transgressions of friends.”  I wish I had known this scientific stuff earlier in my life.  

He then offers what typically happen to us in adolescence.  We become even more abstract in our thinking about friends.  The focus now shifts to things like “commitment, empathy, and affection.”  This becomes very relevant to the work I do with adolescents who are transitioning into young adults.  Obviously, we could go into depth into many of these areas.  But there is one more move Christakis makes that was important to me.

Christakis turns to the question of how friends treat each other, as well as how they treat folks who are not their friends.  Not surprisingly, he tells us that friends within a group treat each other well.  He calls this “in-group favoritism.”  (244) It is not hard to make links here to things like group biases and so forth.  He gives me reasons for this.  For example, “Practicing in-group favoritism can lead to practical benefits for oneself.”  I am sure I know this at a level that pre-dates any thinking about it.

So how does this fit in with the idea of friendship as the root of spirituality?  I begin with the awareness that Jesus called those early disciples his friends.  Maybe it was only because, being fully human---he was genetically disposed to this anyway!  But even more than that, I am sure Jesus knew the deep value and importance of friendship.  It is core to relationship and to the idea that humans are social.  

If we are friends with Jesus, then that means we are also friends with God.  Indeed, this is one of my favorite metaphors for God---God is friend.  I find that even more helpful now, because of what Christakis brings to me.  It helps me understand even more fully the ideas of commitment, loyalty, etc.  I am even good with the idea of in-group favoritism.  But we need a slight adjustment here.  We need to remember friendship is universal and that all people finally can be friends.  In the real world humans tend to get enemies, too.  But those are not necessary in the Spirit.  Finally, Jesus calls us all to be friends.  Let’s begin to live into the truth of that.