Wow. I don't know why, but there seemed to be so much tension tonight. I really hate conflict. In my friendships and relationships I tend to avoid conflict as much as possible. However, somehow, working through conflict is what eventually makes a relationship stronger. I was thinking about two quick stories. The first has no restoration, but it leads into the second, which does.
1 - When I first moved to Greeley, I was a sophomore at UNC. I became friends with a girl named Moriah from my dance class. Really, she was my first friend here. She ended up moving in with me because of roommate troubles on her end. When the semester was over, we decided we were going to move into this cool old college house with a bunch of other kids from the Green party - most of whom were pot-heads. I only knew Moriah, but I could sense the environment would not be good. In December of that year, I became a Christian. The leader of the bible study that I had been going to, Jeff Cook, and his wife said that they had a room opening in their basement. At the last minute, I called Moriah and told her I would not be living with her. When she asked me why, I told her it was because I was now a Christian and I felt like I wanted to be in a place where I could discover what that meant. (By the way, Moriah considered herself atheist and was turned off by Christianity.) Really, what I was saying was that she was a bad influence on my new life. I did not explain it in a tactful way. That was the last time we ever spoke. Later, I wrote Moriah several letters apologizing, and trying to make up, but she never wrote back. I have no idea where she is now, or what happened to her.
2- Eventually, I moved into Kelly and Jeff's basement and I started to discover what it meant to be a real friend. Tim, Rob, Eric, Kelly, and all of them had been friends since college. At some point, they all just decided that they were family. And with family, you don't quit. They pulled me in and I became part of that tight community. I can't count how many times one or the other of us has hurt someone else's feeling or said something hurtful or been unfair. And yet we always work through it. It is hard, and sometimes you just want to quit. But it is always worth it.
3 comments:
mmmm... good story betony face.
i think you're totally right, about the working through conflict making relationships stronger. there's a sort of depth and bond created in a friendship when that happens... it is non-existant with those "nicey" friends who you never get deep enough with to disagree with...
I'm not sure what was the deal. I think some of it was tension from creative disagreement, but I think maybe we just had some crankiness too.
In the long run I think it will be good, like Brianne is saying. One of my favorite proverbs - "Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses"
That one's really good for me but really hard for me.
Ah the Green House story :)
I heard part of it from Joel...who you were gonna live with. (And yeah...he smokes pot copiously, I'm glad you didn't kill your brain cells there...) They were all perplexed by it. It was tricksy explaining it to him.
What always is interesting to me is people's reactions when we choose to live our relationships in this way. Those used to using passive aggressive behavior and other manipulation tactics, I think, are scared by our willingness to confront something head on.
~H
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