Friendship Isn't Easy

I'm sure we all remember our first childhood friends, of how uncomplicated friendship was.  We simply played together.  We didn't compete with each other and there was never the lurking danger of being abandoned.  There were no hidden agendas.  I don't think that any of us were even possessive.  None of these friendships were built to last, of course, and some of us moved, some found new friends, some found loneliness.

Now that I am of a rather advanced age I see friendship not as an entitlement, and not as an already given.  It is a gift.  It is a privilege.  I don't know how long my current friendships are going to last, since everyone I'm in contact with I have known for under a decade.  I rather like it this way.  It is like having a fresh start, being given a clean slate.  There is only one individual in my life who knew me before I legally changed my name more than twenty years ago and our friendship only resumed in the last four years following decades of dormancy.  The others have only known me as Aaron.  Not as Greg, my birth name.

I have lost some friends recently.  Most of them are Anglicans and since I have left their precious den of lying hypocrites some of them would rather not give me the time of day.  That is okay with me, I suppose.  It is sad, and I think rather tragic that alleged Christians are so averse to reconciliation.  As though the act of apologizing is simply too degrading to them.  But these are Anglicans and Anglicans tend to be very lacking in integrity and honesty.

I am not happy about losing them but if this is what they want then of course it must be respected.  I am not letting them off easily.  I sent an email to one of them just the other day, explaining that I would like our friendship to continue but that I still expect from him an apology for some very harsh things he told me in an email a few months ago around my decision to leave his precious church.  He has done nothing to respond ever since that nasty screed he sent me.  So I have given him seven days to come up with an apology.  If he does not then the friendship is over, at least till he comes around which may never happen.

I am not writing anyone off any more.  I am done with burning bridges.  I will only consider a friendship over when the other person is harmful or dangerous to me or when the other party has made it clear that they no longer want to see me.

I still want to err on the side of reconciliation.  Life is short, don't you think, Gentle Reader?