A Continuum Approach – Friends

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Friends

“And friends are friends forever

If the Lord’s the Lord of them

And a friend will not say never

‘Cause the welcome will not end

Though it’s hard to let you go

In the Father’s hands we know

That a lifetime’s not too long

To live as friends” – Friends, Michael W. Smith

I know many hear the opening chords of the song above and run for the box of Kleenex.  I truly understand.  Friends are special to all of us.  

When I was in elementary school, I was put into what was described as a gifted studies program.  It was essentially in its infancy.  It was basically a day away from my regular classmates to spend with the smart kids.  I enjoyed it.  I don’t know if it helped much.  But, it did indicate something to me.  I was different.

In my mind, I had always had challenges relating to other kids.  I would rather have my nose in a book or listening to music at school or church than being with others.  I just couldn’t deal with it.  On some level, I hated school.  Granted, most kids do…but that is another post.

My parents were…different…on some level.  They cherished social activity.  That made it challenging for me, but there was a gift in the package that they offered.  With my dad being in ministry, that gave us family/ministry friends.  My mom made VERY close friends when she was in college.  My parents made a point to get together with these friends frequently or once a year.  Of course, these friends in turn had kids…who became our friends.  These kids, I could relate to, connect with…we had…a shared…identity.  

Identity 

Most kids in our society struggle discovering their identity.  They don’t know who they are in this big world.  Sometimes, parents and other adults wish to help them.  There can be good and bad in this help.  In the Christian community, we have been conditioned over the last 30 or 40 years to refer to the butterfly emerging from the cocoon as we describe our becoming a new creation in Jesus.  The science that we refer to is the fact that the butterfly has to struggle to get out of the cocoon as part of the process.  If the butterfly is denied the struggle, they emerge deformed and ugly…not beautiful.  Our point usually is that there is merit in the process of the struggle.  I believe this.  I believe that we should learn to stand on our own.  We should learn to become independent.  I have learned something else from nature recently that has challenged that idea a little bit.  

Not all insects who use cocoons as a means of development function the same as a butterfly.  Ants actually have cocoons as they are developing.  The queen and other worker ants will actually help the developing ants out of the cocoon.  It is wild and amazing at the same time.  Ants are a hive species.  They live and die by the needs of the community (or for them, the colony).  So, I think it is best to look over the whole of nature.  At times, we all could use a little help.  How do we know the difference???

Know your child.

Know your friend.

Offer gently.  Respect their boundaries.  Always love them.

Children and youth have to learn their identity.  

Erik Erikson was a twentieth century psychologist in the tradition of Freud who brought the idea of identity into our modern discourse.  From Wikipedia: “The Eriksonian framework rests upon a distinction among the psychological sense of continuity, known as the ego identity (sometimes identified simply as “the self”); the personal idiosyncrasies that separate one person from the next, known as the personal identity; and the collection of social roles that a person might play, known as either the social identity or the cultural identity. Erikson’s work, in the psychodynamic tradition, aimed to investigate the process of identity formation across a lifespan.” I have something of a love/hate feeling with Erikson’s work.  The last part of the quote focuses on the idea of “identity formation across a lifespan”.  I have this feeling (and it could be wrong) that many therapists in the public eye focus on identity in the periods of childhood and adolescence, trying to contain it’s formation in those periods.  I am not saying all therapists believe this.  The ones who find their way onto television screens often repeat it this way though.  Erikson’s work tends to point to an identity development that is lifelong.  That means our identity is continually forming.  We are continuously growing.

One concept that is discussed as we grow is echoed in a parental question: “where’d you learn to talk like that???” I watched a program once that discussed how we learn to talk.  They said linguists have traced the origins of our language to our friends.  They said we learn to talk from our friends at school.  I find this intriguing.  It will be interesting to see how that science is challenged with the rise of homeschooling.  

I think one aspect is relatively solid though.  Our identities are much like knives and swords.  They are forged as we interact with others.  Friends play an important part in that process.  One thing that I missed in the whole concept of growing up was how to connect with others.  I think the more realistic statement is that I didn’t notice how I connected with others.  I have been told that I do it well, almost naturally.  I don’t know how I do it.  I just…do.   One thing I realized as I got older was that shared experiences form connections.  Surviving through something creates connections. 

Support

A good measure of a good friendship is how much give, take, and support there is between you. We give to our friends because we love and care for them.  This is a good thing.  It shows others that they are loved and that others care about them.  In turn, we also take from our friends and other connections.  Of course, in order for one to give, one must receive (i.e., take).  When you are in a crisis, some will ask what your support system is.  Friends are often a part of this support system. 

Biblical thoughts

The first thought that popped into my mind when I thought of friends in the Bible was the relationship between David and Jonathan.  These two were as close as brothers.  Parts of this story are described in 1 Samuel 19-20.  

Some scholars have used some of the descriptions of this relationship to indicate that it was a homosexual relationship.  I think doing this is a practice that is described as eisegesis (reading into the text).  I believe that you can only come to this conclusion if you ignore the rest of the Bible and cultural practices and the circumstances the two of them were in.  This belief is one that I think gets many males in trouble in our culture.  Men can have deep, intimate relationships and it not be romantic or sexual.  Just because a man has a good relationship with another man doesn’t make it homosexual (the same goes for females, too).  Too often, people mess up good relationships and their lives by introducing sex and romance into a relationship.

One of the other aspects of identity is how we describe ourselves.  We tend to base it off of our profession (“I’m a plumber.” “I’m a lawyer.” “I’m a You-tuber.”{Honestly, I think most You-tubers are hard working people.  It does sound more like a recreation to me.  That may be because I grew up in a rural area where the word “tube” was often associated with something you floated in on the river or lake. So,…🤷‍♂️.}). This version is normal to our culture.  A concept my pastor has been mentioning over recent weeks is “finding our identity in God, as His children”.  I’ll admit, this is hard.  If we (as friends, parents, leaders, etc.) can create a Biblical vision of who God is and point friends, associates, etc., to that vision, we might change the world around us (and in us).  Even Jesus called the disciples friends (John 15:12-17).

Science thoughts

I struggled to figure this one out.  I couldn’t remember anything mentioning elements or things being “friendly”.  After mulling it over, it finally hit me that friends form bonds.  Elements form chemical bonds between each other.  I remembered the term “covalent bonds”.  According to Science Direct, “A covalent bond consists of the mutual sharing of one or more pairs of electrons between two atoms. These electrons are simultaneously attracted by the two atomic nuclei. A covalent bond forms when the difference between the electronegativities of two atoms is too small for an electron transfer to occur to form ions.” 

(https://www.sciencedirect.com › topics Covalent Bond – an overview | ScienceDirect Topics)

The general idea is the atoms have a quality about them that attracts them to each to create a mutual bond.  Oddly enough, what was an example that I found??  Water.  

“Water consists of a covalent bond containing hydrogen and oxygen bonding together to make H2O. In this atomic molecule, two hydrogen atoms share their single electrons with the oxygen atom, which shares its own two electrons in return.”

https://www.softschools.com › science Covalent Bond Examples – SoftSchools.com

The thing that makes the world a habitable place to be is water, which is made up of a covalent bond (a science friendship).  My basic point is that when bonds are mutually formed, the bond (or friendship) is beneficial for all.

Continuum Approach Notes

This excursion of discourse that I have been on is related to my approach related to Continuum Mechanics.  One thing I wanted to mention is that psychology actually contains skills that can be applied across many professions.  One of those is employed in therapy sessions.  It is called “interviewing”.  One of my texts in my education was even called “Intentional Interviewing”.  So, just because these skills look like they are focused for psychology, counseling, and life coaching, it doesn’t mean they can’t be applied in other areas.

My approach is an attempt at a fusion between science and psychology on one level.  The Systems Family of therapies looks at the environment of a person’s life.  It was described to me in “circles” that surround a person.  Each of the posts has moved to a surrounding circle.  This one being about the circle of friends.  Mechanics examines a structure as if it has different cells like a honeycomb.  So this would be like a group of surrounding honeycomb cells.

A little note of transparency here…do you ever have what the young kids call a “facepalm” moment?  When I was in graduate school, they would tell us, “if you are going to research or name something ‘this’ or ‘that’, do a quick Google search first to see what is already out there”.  Well, dim light bulb here didn’t do that quite as extensively as he should have.  

I did an update this week to my coaching page and I wanted to look at it to make sure my changes were still there.  Well, I tried to look at it through my WordPress app on my phone.  That app has a mind of its own and it wouldn’t let me look at it fully.  So, I googled “Continuum Coaching” to find my page.  Well, I found a lot of other material out there.  Of course, my brain is telling me, “You idiot, you idiot…”.  But…life goes on.  If you chose to make this boat ride with me, you get to experience every time I beach my boat on a sand bar.  There was a man named Robert Witherspoon who proposed an executive coaching model that resembles Continuum Coaching/mechanics.  So…more info to follow. 😁

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