Those who hold the line
An ode to friendship
Proverbs 27:9-10 (MSG)
Just as lotions and fragrance give sensual delight,
a sweet friendship refreshes the soul.
Don’t leave your friends or your parents’ friends
and run home to your family when things get rough;
Better a nearby friend
than a distant family.
“I have the best friends.”
This has been a common refrain of mine recently, spoken most often in response to the question I’ve been hearing a lot: “How was your ordination?”
Now I admit, confessing that I have the best friends may seem an odd way to describe my ordination. It was the pinnacle of my professional and ministerial career, the culmination of three years of grueling school, internship, and discernment.
Even so, there is something that I will remember above all of that, something that I held on to most tightly and soaked in most deeply in those fleeting hours in a church sanctuary:
All my best friends were there.
I had friends from all periods of my life who travelled from a total of seven different states to celebrate with me. I had friends from Wisconsin who I literally only saw for the two hours I was at church before they had to leave. I had friends who left an amazing continuing ed program early to drive all the way from New Mexico to Nebraska in 24 hours. I had friends who braved a sketchy night at an airport hotel and who flew in to Nebraska for a whopping 18 hours and who drove all day Saturday to make it back for church on Sunday, just to be there and celebrate with me.
I seriously have the best friends. I’m not making this up.
However, it was only as I stood amongst all my friends at my ordination that I realized something, something I should’ve realized ages ago but took seeing everyone in our fancy white alb and red stole get ups to really see clearly.
All my best friends are professional Jesus freaks.1
This surprised me at first, as I do not seek out Jesus freaks in my search for friends. But given that most of my friends have come through work or school—and I’ve only ever worked in churches and most recently went to seminary—that means most of my friends are pastors, and the few who aren’t formal pastors (God bless them) still have some theological training or are a leader in ministry.
More importantly, this means that they’re friends who see me as God sees me. They’re friends who affirm the hell out of me, pray for me, hope for me. They’re friends who name God’s action in the world through me. They’re friends who hear my confessions and forgive me of my sins. They’re friends who proclaim Christ crucified, died, and risen in my life.
They are my best friends, but they are also the person and voice of Christ in my life.
And as I sat amongst them at my ordination, I realized they might be the single most important gift to me as I begin my ministry.
One of my non-Bible bibles this past year was Henri Nouwen’s The Inner Voice of Love. It is filled with beautiful and vulnerable journal entries from one of the most challenging times in this saint’s life. One of them, entitled “Remain Anchored in Your Community,” says this:
“It is important to remain as much in touch as possible with those who know you, love you, and protect your vocation. If you visit people with great needs and deep struggles that you can easily recognize in your own heart, remain anchored in your home community. Think about your community as holding a long line that girds your waist. Wherever you are, it holds that line. Thus you can be very close to people in need of your healing without losing touch with those who protect your vocation. Your community can pull you back when its members see that you are forgetting why you were sent out.”
My friends who showed up for me at my ordination was this community, a community who happens to live in diaspora, dispersed across the entire country and three different time zones. But from wherever they are, they are always holding that line for me. They are always a reminder of this vocation to which I’ve been called and gifted. They are always the ones protecting my call and holding me in love when it’s got me down. They will always be the ones who know the highs and lows of this weird and beautiful job, and will keep me centered when it all seems a little too much.
They are the rope that keeps me tethered when I drift off to sea, the line that holds me steady, the current that draws me back to why I let God sign me up for this in the first place.
Surrounded in prayer by all my friends and pastors at my ordination, feeling that line around my waist stronger than ever, I realized that this community and these friends of mine are my strength. My foundation. My greatest gift.
Because frankly, there is no Pastor Jenna Olson Popp without them. ⤵️
I share this with you today because I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but friendship doesn’t get a whole lot of recognition. Our society and culture tends to put an inordinate amount of attention on romantic relationships. Thousands of songs are written about seeking or finding love. We make a point to celebrate dating and wedding anniversaries. We have ceremonies of making promises to one another at weddings, highlighting a deep and life-long commitment to another person.
Of course, finding a lifelong romantic partner is worthy of celebration and honor, but all of this energy and attention we give to spouses and partners is absent from friendship. I find this to be a real shame, especially as we continue to live amidst an epidemic of loneliness and isolation. Also, because I have a ton of Leslie Knope energy around my friends and think Galentine’s Day should be a national holiday.
Friendship is also ignored in the conversations about romantic partners. John Gottman, the go-to psychologist for marriage health, is adamant that our marriages should first and foremost be deep friendships. It’s not passion or an intense feeling of love that sustains our intimate relationships, but a beautiful sustaining friendship. This is why I often call my husband my best friend, or maybe rather, Best Friend. It’s the friendship I have with him that I most treasure. It’s the friendship I have with him that will last my lifetime.
So today, I’m here to publicly celebrate all my incredible, amazing, simultaneously sinner-and-saint friends:
Friends who show up for me (even when it’s in Nebraska).
Friends who love me when I’m at my worst (i.e., after I’ve hit my extrovert limit).
Friends who make me laugh (a lot).
Friends who are my pastors when I need one (because my goodness, pastors need pastors).
Friends who hold the line in my vocation (and remind me it’s worth it).
Friends who bring out my most Jenna (and integrated 7) self.
Friends who have become my chosen siblings. (You’re family. Hard stop.)2
Friends who I will never marry but are stuck with me forever. (FOREVER.)
Friends to whom I am deeply and profoundly committed. (I friggin love ya.)
Thank you, God, for friends.
👩🏼🤝👩🏻👬🏼👩🏼🤝👨🏻
How do you celebrate your friendships? What are the ways they hold the line for you in your life?
I ran across an article by Psychology Today that resonated with me:
Research suggests that women have higher expectations of support and intimacy in their close relationships than men do. Women integrate our friends into our lives as deeply as siblings, whereas men treat their friends more like cousins.