Here it is, as promised.

Blessings to you on your journey!

p.s. – I’ll follow up with a picture when I have the opportunity.

Okay, not all “friends” are created equal, especially in the techno-communication world in which we live today.  But real friends – those brothers with whom I can share the good, the bad, and the ugly of our lives – make a profound difference in my journey.  Whether our primary point of connection comes from church, work, Men’s Fraternity, neighborhood, or other fellowship, these are the guys who help me live up to my best.  And I really want to live up to my best.

Just a few months ago, a friend of mine sent me a G-mail instant message that sparked a dialogue that simply couldn’t be resolved via such an impersonal format.  (I believe the topic was, “What is the nature of the Trinity?”  Light stuff, right?)  We decided Raising Cane’s (home of the best chicken fingers and dipping sauce on the planet – sorry Guthrie’s lovers from Tuscaloosa) was a much better place of enlightenment.  As we left, we talked about how much we enjoy sharing meaningful conversation, and that we should get together more often.  He half-jokingly said we could start getting together every week at the same time for coffee and someday be like the old men who have clearly been sharing a weekly coffee fellowship for decades.

Thankfully, his comment stayed with both of us, and within a couple weeks we had decided on a time for coffee that we thought could become regular.  A couple of months later, we are now part of the regular Friday morning crowd at our favorite caffeine-ery, and have now added a third member to our fellowship.  The “new guy” is actually the friend who connected the other two of us in the first place.

I share all of this to simply say this.  There really is nothing quite like knowing I have a true brother or two that I will be seeing each week, with no agenda, but the simple freedom to be my self and share what is on my mind, be it serious, silly, exciting, or mundane.  Have a drink or two, share some laughs, wrestle with a few matters of faith and family, witness a bit of light mayhem in the establishment, whatever.  Once upon a time, I remember a song along these lines that became more than a little popular…

Click here to view the embedded video.

How have your most meaningful friendships been built?  How are you a different person because of your friendships?

This morning I awoke to a Baton Rouge that is both soggy and beautiful.  Sometimes life is like that.  Rains come and fall all over our lives.  As the showers fall or the storms rage, we aren’t quite sure whether to feel anxious or encouraged.  Changes are coming, as they inevitably do, but no one asked our permission first.  We can feel both peaceful and melancholy at the same time.  The rains stop and we venture out of our cover.  Enjoy the fresh earthy scents.  Pull a couple of weeds that have been loosened by the deluge.  Drink in the rich hues of green around us.

The day itself seems to be thoughtful – mournful, sad, contemplative, anticipatory.  A good day for pouring fresh rich coffee and drinking it slowly.  Read some Frost or Dostoevsky or Whitman or Nouwen or some other writer who invites you to slowly hear and consider their words.

A day made to be encountered slowly and reverently.  Not to be rushed and ignored, but lingered and savored.

Aaaaaaahhhhh…

Wonder what today will bring.

Even as I consider the last, I hear the fresh rainfall, which God mercifully held aloft until I reached my office.  Open the blinds to my window looking out on the grass and trees and pond and rustic red barn.  Wonder what could ever have compelled me to close the blinds yesterday.  Although I have not yet spent time today in God’s Word, I have spent time drinking deeply of His well of life, seeing and hearing and tasting and smelling and feeling Him and His wonderful creative redemptive Truth all around me.

Ever have a day like that?  We would love to hear about it.

Yesterday I shared a link to a video that gives a rather unnerving, satirical viewpoint on Twittering, the micro-blogging phenomenon of which I have been a part now for maybe two or three months. Today I am glad to share with you how all this high-tech instant communication can be a part of a real relationship where coffee is imbibed, stories are shared, theology is hammered out, and friendship is deepened.

Last week as I was going through my emails at the office, I got an instant message (G-mail style) from a good friend of mine. It was one of those “Wazzup?” kind of messages. Rather quickly, this simple correspondence evolved into some genuine theological discussion. My Catholic friend had been talking to his Pentecostal co-worker about the Trinity, and he was curious to hear my non-denominational, evangelical take on it. I quickly suggested to him that a late lunch at Raising Cane’s was required if this was to go any further. (For those of you living outside the range of Cane’s, you are sadly missing out on the finest chicken fingers and dipping sauce known to the free world. Guthrie’s in Tuscaloosa, AL holds a close second.)

The conversation was spirited, heartening, and rather deep. As we were leaving, my buddy commented that we really should do this more regularly, kinda like the old guys who have breakfast every Friday morning at Frank’s, or IHOP, or whatever. We both laughed, but agreed he was onto something, and left with an undefined hope of continuing this dialogue.

So yesterday he sends me another G-mail instant message, clarifying the Trinitarian view of his Pentecostal colleague, etc. Before we finished the online conversation, we had set up a standing weekly appointment for coffee on Friday mornings at 6:30. I sense real, lasting friendship in the making – the kind that doesn’t seem to happen as much anymore in our culture of surface relationships and conversational skimming. We’ll see.

My point today is this: tools make whatever impact they make based on how they are used by the tool-wielder. All this communication technology can easily be used as a substitute for real relationships while giving the appearance of many friendships. But it can be a helpful method for real people to make real progress in deepening real relationships over real coffee. Bottoms up!

A few days ago I was nearing the end of a rich conversation with a good friend of mine, a man who walks closely with his Lord and whose faith walk has helped to shape my own for the better.  We were sitting outside PJ’s Coffee Shop in downtown Baton Rouge, enjoying the good coffee, strong friendship, beautiful weather, and a great dialogue about the importance of growing in personal integrity, responsibility, and honesty.  Good stuff!

Up walks a man who promptly positions himself toward us in a way I have come to immediately recognize during my time of working downtown.  He asks us for money.  I have heard this many times now, so it wasn’t new for me.  It was the first time, however, I have actually heard someone say “I am a starving man.  Can you help me?”  Starving – that’s a strong word.  I calmly tell him I have no cash on me, and that I can’t help him.  (An honest, yet somewhat avoidant response on my part.)  My friend, however, looks into the window of the coffee shop, sees the pastries, and says to the man, “Come in here with me and let me buy you a muffin.”  (A more engaged response that reflects a similar unwillingness just to hand him cash, but a willingness to feed the man if he is, indeed, starving.)

The guy pauses for just a moment, gets this somewhat scoffing look on his face, and says, “I don’t do muffins.”  I kid you not.  I’m giving you exact dialogue here.  “I don’t do muffins!”

And then came the best part of the interaction.  My friend, without reacting in some bent-out-of-shape way, responds to him with, “If you’re STARVING, I’ll be glad to buy you a muffin.”  Another pause, longer this time.  “Oh well, thanks anyway,” says our brazen beggar, and away he walks.

I offer this story, not as some kind of judgment on people who ask you for money, although this may well apply to many of them.  I share this story to reflect how badly our society has regressed from its foundation of personal responsibility, self-discipline, courage, and sacrifice of momentary comfort to a culture of immediate gratification, laziness, fear, and a grossly inflated elevation of “rights.”

But it isn’t just beggars on the street.  It is our children.  Our neighbors.  Our spouses.  Our friends.  Our selves.  And each time you and I give in to the unhealthy demands of such emotional children, we make momentary peace and fuel a much greater, long-term, deep-seated problem that seems to be spiraling out of control.  If I “help” someone by giving in to their childishness, I am not, in fact helping them.  I am actually partnering with them to contribute to even greater depths of emotional, behavioral, relational, spiritual immaturity in their lives.  That isn’t helpful!  It isn’t loving!  It isn’t compassionate!  But it’s what the immature person wants, because it feels good now.

Do you have the courage and the grit to stand in both compassion and strength, making firm, loving decisions about your actions toward others, despite whatever pressure they may apply to get you to act the way they want?  Do I?  What I believe is that I can only help you grow to the same level of this compassionate strength I have attained.  And so, for my own health, for the health of my family and friends, and for your sake, I continue to face the tough battlegrounds in my self and my relationships.

I want to grow stronger like my friend, Eddie.  And I know that he, like me, seeks to grow stronger like our friend, Jesus.  And the Good News is, Jesus is actually forming both of us more into His likeness with each day we walk with Him.  He is teaching both of us to love our selves and others more fully, so we can act in the best interest of people – not just according to their/our emotional whims.  And that is very Good News!

I talk to so many hurting people who feel so alone.  Sometimes their actual problems aren’t as bad as the pain of facing those problems alone.  Alone is Hell.  We need friends.  It is truly astonishing the amount of hope that stirs in a human spirit, simply by having someone enter into one’s most vulnerable space and state clearly (with or without words), “I’m here with you.”  What a gift to be wandering blindly through a terrible storm of life, and to realize a trusted friend has quietly joined you with an umbrella and a light and no words of condemnation!  Or the profound comfort in awaking in a hospital bed to realize the calm presence of the person beside you is not your doctor, but your friend.  Or the friend who loves you enough to sit quietly beside you because no words can heal your hurt, when all others have abandoned you because no words can heal your hurt.  And don’t forget the simple, yet fulfilling joy of talking and laughing and sharing things with a true friend in ways that would lead others to think you strange, while your friend truly enjoys these moments as uniquely you.

Take a minute to consider if you have been blessed to have one or more REAL FRIENDS.  If so, please let them know how much they mean to you.  You may assume they understand without it having to be said.  Say it anyway.  Can you imagine your life without that friend?  I would like to take a few moments to say thanks to my REAL FRIENDS.  As I pause and reflect, I realize God has given me more than most…

So much of my strength and wisdom and security and faith and joy and insight and hope and courage I owe to my friends here in Baton Rouge – Chemaine and Troy and Mark and Eddie P and Blaine and Dave and Eddie W and Glen and Ken and countless others I enjoy and appreciate in so many ways.  Thank you so much for sharing your lives with me, and for allowing me to share my life with you.  Thanks for all the cups of coffee and prayers and laughter and hope and tears and phone calls and emails and movie quotes and early mornings and late nights and words of encouragement.  In the spirit of the great song by Ray Boltz, Thank You.

And so many others have been there over the years – Joey and Jason B and Barry and Larry and Clint and Hal and Trevor and Weldon and Jeremy L and Jeremy D and Phillip and Kevin and Robert and Jason D and Michael and Jerry and Jeffrey and Bo and Richard and Scott B and Scott J and Jason E and many, many more.    Thank You for helping me become the man I am today.

My cup runneth over!  I see God every day in so many people who are there for me, loving me despite myself.  Life is good.

(I’m sure I’ve forgotten someone in this list.  Hopefully we are good enough friends for the oversight to be overlooked.)