Grace Indeed by Dianna Anderson

I haven't known Dianna for terribly long, but I'm so thankful to have met her! She has a wonderful sense of humor that she uses to write about deeply non-funny things. As someone considerably older, I admire how she uses her voice to help women. And today I'm happy to be able to share her story about some cross-gender friendships that she's had.

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When I was a kid, my best friend was a boy named Phil whose backyard was kiddy-corner from mine. This wasn’t a friendship of convenience, though – he wasn’t my best friend because there was no one else in the neighborhood. In fact, there were three or four girls around in the same few block radius. But for some reason, I never got along with them – it may have had something to do with them making me pay them a dime in order to go on a walk.

As a little girl, I did not conform to gender roles. I was much more interested in climbing a tree than playing with dolls. My hair was cut short because I refused to comb it. And, most obviously, my best friends were boys.

I never understood why my friendship with boys was a reason for teasing, but there was teasing nonetheless. My two best friends in fourth and fifth grade were Curtis and Tyler, and every day when walking home, my classmates would tease me, “Hey Dianna, do you liiiiiiike Curtis? Are you guys going to do iiiit?” (In fourth grade, we barely knew what “it” was, other than that it was something people who liked each other in that way did).

Now, as a 26 year old adult, I have some sympathy for those kids who teased me throughout elementary school. It’s pretty clear that they were just parroting the belief that men and women can’t be just friends – that there will always be some kind of sexual tension or problems there. And you especially cannot be friends with a married man if you are a single woman. Because so many others before us have made mistakes, have committed “emotional adultery,” cross gender friendships are problematic. This is a fact that has always been a reality in my life, from seven years old all the way into adulthood. I’ve always gotten along better with the males of our species, and I’ve always had to defend that choice of friendship.

But when I hit college, something changed. Girls, instead of thinking me weird or odd for being friends with boys, were jealous. Because of a lifetime of being best friends with guys, talking to them was easy for me. It wasn’t hard for me to sit down in the lunchroom and start a conversation with a man I didn’t know, and it wasn’t hard for me to develop close friendships that weren’t plagued by “does she like me in that way? What if she does? Oh no!”

Of course, there were boundaries and sometimes confusion – as any cross gender friendships will have. But in my choice to defy norms and develop friendships with boys at an early age, I set myself up for easier friendships as an adult.

In the church, we do a major disservice to both men and women when we discourage cross-gender friendships, when we warn people off of getting “too close” with a member of the opposite sex, when we instill fear instead of grace into our relationships. I truly believe that my cross gender friendships throughout my life have helped me to understand grace, mercy, and love on a deeper level. Because I am not afraid of the what-if and what-would-people-think, each of my friends fills their role as David, as Josiah, as Jim, as Sam, as Chase, and James. Rather than being just “men,” they are each, uniquely, my brothers. And that is grace indeed.

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Dianna Anderson has a day job as a radio producers on the south side of Chicago. By night, though, she takes to the internet as a caped crusader of feminism! Which means that she blogs about feminism and theology and how people should be allowed to say "vagina" without cringing. Her blog can be found at: http://www.diannaeanderson.net

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This post is a part of a series of guest posts about cross-gender friendships in preparation for the Sacred Friendship Gathering in April. For more information about the gathering, check out the website. I hope to see you there! 

 

Finding Friendship with Women by Kellen Freeman

The prevailing wisdom tends to be that women think they can be friends with men, but men are always looking for a little "something-something" if they can get it. I'm so happy to host Kellen Freeman here today to help break that myth. I love how he talks about what he gained from his friendships with women and how they were a place of safety, not danger. Thanks, Kellen, for sharing your story today!

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In high school, my closest friends were guys. We shared similar interests, favorite music and movies, and were even in a couple bands together. But when I left for college, that began to change. I found my circle of friends mainly shifting to women. It was a situation not entirely familiar to me, but it was one I’m absolutely thankful for.

When I first arrived at college, my only friend on campus was a female friend I had only spoke to over AOL Instant Messenger. She invited me to a campus ministry that she went to on Wednesday nights. Within that group I was adopted into a group of girls that met together every Sunday night to watch the shows on ABC, Grey’s Anatomy, Extreme Home Makeover, and Desperate Housewives. While I have to admit that I didn’t always enjoy the shows, I enjoyed the company. They cared about me and were interested in who I was as a person. That first year I didn’t have too many guy friends. It wasn’t because they weren’t around, but because they were already in solid friendships and I didn’t see much of them. I met with some guys for a weekly Bible study, but that was about it. The girls were around more often and I valued having their opinions and their friendships.

These girls even helped me to accept my past as a part of who I am. Four years earlier my father had died, and two years earlier I was hospitalized for major depression. It was a story I didn’t tell people because I didn’t like to share it. But after letting out a tiny bit of that story one night, these girls gathered around me, bought a pizza, and listened as I told my story. It was one I had never told from start to end before. The best part was, at the end of it all, they didn’t accuse me of not being a Christian, they didn’t say depression was a sin, they didn’t say anything corny or cheesy about the death of a loved one. They just loved me. They listened to who I was with the only purpose of seeking to know another. It was the best situation to open up to. Since then, I’ve managed to tell my story without hesitation because these girls have helped me to realize that this is not something to run from, but it is who I am.

When I graduated from college and left for seminary, I arrived at my new dorm room in a state away from any friends I had before. I gravitated toward the guys that I had class with because we would play video games together and that helped build camaraderie among us. But usually when I was looking for a solid conversation, I would walk down the hall a few doors to a female friend’s room. We would share the hard struggles we had and our problems in ways I didn’t usually talk to my guy friends about. For some reason I just felt her company was a better fit for the deeper discussions of life than my guy friends were.

As college went on, I met a girl, and as seminary was in full swing I would marry her. Because of the lifestyle two full time students possess, my wife and I are each others primary friendship. We haven’t found too many friendships in our town, so most nights we just spend at home together. This proximity has led to some great conversations, fun board games, and way too many hours spent on NetFlix. In that time, she has become my closest friend. One that I can share anything with, and one that seeks to better know me, help me to become a better person, and one that puts up with my desire for theological discussions at 1 in the morning.

Though we have drifted a part because we are no longer in school together, I think back to the friendships I once had during college and remember how they helped shape me into who I am today. That is something I’m incredibly thankful for, and wouldn’t change, even if I could.

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Kellen is a recent graduate from the Methodist Theological School in Ohio. He lives near Akron, OH with his wife Rachael. He blogs regularly at www.kellenfreeman.net and has a new food blog starting today at www.aheapingtablespoon.com. You can find him on Twitter @kellenfreeman. Call him a hipster because of the v-neck if you must, but he’ll fight you about it until his last breath.


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This post is a part of a series of guest posts about cross-gender friendships in preparation for the Sacred Friendship Gathering in April. For more information about the gathering, check out the website. I hope to see you there! 

Smelly, Annoying Boy by Amber Wackford

I discovered Amber's writing when she guest posted for Rachel Held Evans about being a single woman in the Church. She is a beautiful writer and a lovely person and this summer, she may be the first in the virtual village to ever see me play in my band. I was so excited when she told me that she'd like to share about her cross-gender friendship. I'm thrilled to share her post with you today. My friendship with a smelly boy is far younger than hers, but I hope to have a similar tale to tell in another ten years or so.

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Matt and I have a friendship that is sixteen years old. We met in youth group as middle schoolers, and I was good friends with his sister and I didn’t pay him much attention because he was friends with my brother and they were more than a little annoying. Most middle school boys are, I suppose. And they smelled, like lunch meat and feet, which did nothing to elicit a want for relationship. So, in middle school, Matt hung with other smelly, annoying boys and I hung with his older sister and held up my nose because I was too young to know that it is entirely possible to gain a whole lot from being friends with a smelly, annoying boy.

The more time I spent hanging out with his sister, though, the more time I spent hanging out with Matt. And with each movie we watched, each card game we played, each dinner we had, and each prank we pulled on his sister, Matt and I became friends. Like, real friends. The kind of friends who become the first line of defense when the world feels like it’s waging war against you. The kind of friends who stay in driveways long after everyone else has gone home after a movie talking about the movie, and God, and our families, and our church. The kind of friends who bring frappucinos and an empathetic ear when first romances end. The kind of friends who stay connected through phone calls and dinners together over breaks while in college. The kind of friends where I’m now best friends with Matt’s wife and “Aunt Amber” to their son and have a key to their house. The kind of friends who consistently show up for each other, over years, in such a way that being friends starts to look a whole lot more like being family.

I think as a teenager somewhere along the way I was given the message that having a friend like that who was a boy was bad. It could give people the wrong idea, don’t you know. And I’d guess that some of the little old ladies at church did get the wrong impression, but I think that happened because they weren’t willing to look past their assumptions to see what was really there. If they had, they would have seen a brother and sister in Christ taking care of each other in the best ways we knew how at twelve, and then at sixteen, and then at twenty, and now at twenty-eight.

 My friendship with Matt remains as honest, simple, and innocent as it was when we were twelve and we were shooting spit balls at each other at the dinner table. He will always be the guy who can make me laugh when I don’t feel like laughing, and who pesters me for the pure enjoyment that he gets out of it. He is the person who anyone I date has to get along with or I won’t be dating him for long. 

And after sixteen years, he’s still my first line of defense when it feels like the world is waging war against me. After sixteen years, I’m old enough now to not only recognize the benefits of being friends with a guy – who is still smelly and annoying – but, to treasure the gains in the deepest places in my heart. However, I think those gains come not from the fact that Matt is a guy, but from the fact that he is Matt, the one person who has been constant in my life for nearly two decades.

That’s what I hope the little old ladies and other people in church are seeing now when they see Matt and me sitting in church together, with his wife and his son. I hope they’re seeing the kind of connection and closeness that can only be earned by caring for each other over so many years. I hope they’re seeing the pay-off of people who’ve grown up together, in every sense of the word. I hope they’re seeing us individually become better versions of ourselves for the sharpening and challenging that comes from our friendship with each other. More than anything, though, I hope that when they watch us, all of us, Matt, his wife, his son, and me sitting together that they’re seeing, really seeing, what being brothers and sisters in Christ looks like. Because I think it looks a whole lot like loving each other for a really long time.

Eternally, even.

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A military kid who's heart shares space in Michigan and Maryland, Amber is someone who loves loving people and believes that God shows Himself uniquely in the moments when people are enjoying enjoying each other. She writes about the ideas of intentional relationships and community at her blog. Be careful if you become her friend - you'll probably end up in a blog post. But, be her friend. Or at least find her on Twitter: AmberWack.

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This post is a part of a series of guest posts about cross-gender friendships in preparation for the Sacred Friendship Gathering in April. For more information about the gathering, check out the website. I hope to see you there!

Looking for Guest Posts

I've been guesting out a good bit (you can see a list of all of my guest posts here), but it's been a while since I've hosted any guest posts here. I feel bad about that, and would like to change it.

I'm always open to guest posts about unexpected relationships, faith, significance, but right now I'm specifically soliciting guest posts about cross-gender friendships. Do you have a close friend who isn't the same sex as you? Is your spouse in a cross-gender friendship? Have your thoughts about these friendships changed? What have you learned from your opposite-sex friendships?

If you have something to contribute to the conversation, shoot me a message. I'd like to run these pieces over the next two months, so please have a submission to me by next Friday (March 2). You can read my posting guidelines here. You can email your submissions to me here.

I look forward to hearing and sharing your stories!

And if you're interested in signing up for the Sacred Friendship Gathering, there is still space available. Stop by this page for registration information. And if you're going, be sure to let me know so we can hang out. It's just $50 and it's going to be a really great time!

Interview with Dan Brennan

One of the best books that I read last year was Dan Brennan's book Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions. In it, he discusses the history of cross-gender friendships. I've been in touch with Dan and am really looking forward to meeting him in April at the Sacred Friendship Gathering.

Today I'm happy to be sharing an interview I did with Dan about his book, about the conference, and about overcoming cultural biases against male-female friendships.

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Alise Write: Why did you settle on “sacred” for your description of cross-gender friendships?


Dan Brennan: First, I wanted a description which connected with a reverence for God’s presence in the midst of the relational experience but also something beyond a specific tradition like evangelicals, Protestants, Catholics, or Orthodox. I wanted something which suggested there were God-honoring parameters for intimate friendships within marriage and community. Second, I wanted something that spoke of a deep sexual reverence and integrity within marriage and community.

My intention was to explore something that would be considered provocative, controversial, and out of the box. But love can be provocative and still be sacred. Jesus was definitely provocative. Sacred fit for not just the friendship angle but for the passion angle. In our hyperromantic culture, passion in romance is good or sacred. Passion in friendship is suspicious or inappropriate. I wanted to challenge that cultural bias.

AW: What kind of push-back from the evangelical community have you received because of your stance on cross-gender friendships? Where have you found encouragement?

DB: On the push-back question, these are some responses I've received. I’m naïve. I haven’t come to grips with the danger story and the slippery slope. I don’t understand the pastoral issues involved. I don’t have a clue how many pastors fall into sexual sin. Don’t use your freedom for your own personal agenda. Friendship is defined by the church/community. I have to be willing to die to my cross-gender friendships for the sake of the church/community.

Some of my greatest encouragement has come from people who have read my book and have felt like a whole new world of freedom has opened for them. Some have felt so isolated from their community or wrestling with shame for innocent but close friendships. I have so many stories now of people sharing with me their tears of joy and relief.

I must not fail to mention though, I’ve received such ongoing encouragement from those closest to me as well as my friends who see good in this. The deep blessing of Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions is the community of friends it has birthed.

AW: In the book you note that there is a difference between those in the evangelical tradition and those in the Catholic tradition when it comes to cross-gendered friendships. What can those of us in the evangelical community learn from our Catholic brothers and sisters?

DB: There is a rich stream of cross-gender friendship stories in Catholic tradition. Not all Catholics would embrace intimate friendships with the opposite sex beyond marriage. Many Catholic communities feared any closeness between men and women. Nevertheless, there are a number of sacred cross-gender friendships among Catholics throughout history.

Next, Catholics appeal to the Trinity as a Communion of Persons. That community is Love. And both men and women are created in the image of God who is this Partnership of Love. What this means for Catholics is that we, as men and women, single or married, find our deepest meaning, happiness, and fulfillment when we imitate a life of ongoing intimacy and communion (God’s image and our identity) with others including our cross-gender friends. We were made to be in communion with each other. This oneness for us includes marriage but also happens outside of it (singles) and beyond it (transmarital).

Third, I believe Pope John Paul II’s books on Love and Responsibility and Theology of the Body have much more depth cultivating an attraction for the sacred and the beautiful in male-female friendships than typical evangelical books on male-female relationships. In Love and Responsibility he puts forth his foundational principle: “A person must not merely be the means to an end for another person.”

In other words, we should never treat persons as instruments for achieving our own agendas. This has immense implications for cross-gender friendships. This is foundational for a life-giving, holiness and reverence between the sexes in marriage and friendship.

AW: How have your female friendships shaped your view of your relationship with Christ?

DB: I’ve experienced the deep beauty of Christ in my female friends. I’ve discovered a profound beauty in Christ through my female friends. My language has changed in the sense that the reality of beauty has become part of my daily vocabulary I use to describe other things. I attribute that to seeing the beauty of Christ through my friends.

To elaborate on the beauty of Christ, I was shaped by Eastern Orthodox David Bentley Hart’s explication of beauty. To see the world (and your opposite sex friends) as beautiful from God is a “moral education of desire, the redemption of vision” as he puts it. Christ’s beauty comes through my friendships.

I’ve also come to see Christ’s heart for deep freedom and justice for women. As my friendships with women deepened, I read and reread the Gospel stories where Jesus engaged women, talked with women, touched women, and revealed himself to them. Jesus interacted with women in a way that was utterly different from the sexism in his culture.

AW:  How do you think that sexism in the Church plays into cross-gender friendships?

DB: In Christian tradition the telos of any healthy, life-giving friendship is not sacrifice, but mutuality, equal-regard, oneness, and unrestricted flourishing. If you were a male that is. Only on rare occasions have women had that opportunity. For men what has distinguished friendship from marriage was a voluntary choice to enter into a relationship freely with a telos of unrestricted flourishing and equal regard.

Sexism in the Church undermines cross-gender friendship when there is no freedom for unrestricted mutuality, unrestricted flourishing, equal-regard in love and oneness in marriage, friendship, or community. It is friendship with a telos that offers a deep relational and communal path out of centuries of institutional and social sexism in marriage, community, and leadership.

Sexism happens (from either gender) when we are unable to seek the full good and beautiful of the other’s particularity because of conventions and rules of the old order. Love compels us to move beyond sexism to embrace a deep ethic of responsibility to openness, beauty, and mutuality.

Women perpetuate sexism when they see men with nothing but sexual intentions beneath the surface. When they are unable to enter into a deep communion of mutuality and trust with men (husbands or friends) they were created for and use them for their own purposes.

Men perpetuate sexism when they seek to dominate women, fear them as sexual temptations, or avoid intimacy with them because of their own immaturity. In the current evangelical sub-culture men are taught to win women by intense romantic intimacy or avoid intimacy with them altogether. At the heart of sexism is seeing the other as a sexual object and not able to see them as a whole person with gifts, freedom, and dignity. Certain romantic scripts perpetuate sexism in our churches.

AW: How would you encourage people to move beyond the danger myth with regard to cross-gender friendships?


DB: If we are followers of Christ my first response would be to read afresh the Gospel stories of Jesus as he encountered and engaged women. By no means am I advocating a simplistic WWJD approach. But as followers of Jesus, both men and women, we are to be imitators of Christ. This is what sets us apart from all others. He never used others as a means for an instrumental end. This is why he called disciples his friends and why he was a friend of sinners.

Second, I would encourage men and women to cultivate an attraction for the good and beautiful in members of the opposite sex. We are nuturing an ethical responsibility by beginning to nurture an attraction for the good and the beautiful toward our spouses, toward our cross-gender friends in the appropriate context. God has poured out a distinctive and utterly unique beauty into those particular people we meet who are members of the opposite sex. You may have to start slow and be patient. You may have to practice. But begin cultivating an attraction for the good and beautiful in your opposite sex neighbor.

AW: Tell us a little bit about the Sacred Friendship Gathering. Who is this for? What are some of the topics that will be discussed?

DB: This is for everyone who wants to nurture goodness and beauty in cross-gender friendships in their marriages, churches and community. God’s goodness can be tasted and his beauty can be experienced in cross-gender friendship. We don’t have to compromise a deep sexual integrity within our marriage or cross-gender friendship. If you are interested in sexual integrity within marriage but wishing to extend it beyond marriage into friendship and community, this gathering is for you!

We’re going to have some seasoned perspectives from those who practiced cross-gender friendships. They’re going to share some powerful stories from their own experience. We are going to talk about healing, intimacy, leadership, and wholeness. We are also going to have some time for Q & A and to hear other stories too.

Seating is limited by design. We want this to be something special and significant for all who come. Don’t wait until the last minute to register. We want to reach out to all who are deeply interested in this and want to gather together for this ground-breaking event.

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Thanks, Dan, for sharing with us today! Register for the Sacred Friendship Gathering here. You can follow Dan on Facebook or on Twitter or check out his blog. And be sure to pick up a copy of Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions for much more about this topic.

Sacred Friendship Gathering

Back in November, I wrote a post about being friends with a man. It spawned some really interesting discussion, which is always a treat. In the comments, several people suggested that I check out Dan Brennan's book, Sacred Unions, Sacred Passions. I picked it up and absolutely loved it. It was so refreshing to read a book that treated cross-gender friendships as normal. Because, you know, they really can be.

Since I read Dan's book, he and I have been in touch. And I'm very excited to announce that I'm going to be attending the Sacred Friendship Gathering in Chicago, April 27-28!

In the coming months, I'm going to do a couple of interviews with some of the presenters at the event and sharing guest posts about cross-gender friends. I'll also be live(ish) blogging the event, both here on my blog and at Provoketive.

Through social media, a lot of us have become friends with people of the opposite gender. We tweet with them, we laugh at silly pictures they post on Facebook, we comment on their blogs, we pray for them. Out in cyberland, friends are just friends, regardless of their gender. We approach one another without fear because we know that relationship is based on way more than whether we're boys or girls.

In our flesh and blood relationships however, we still often carry some of those fears with us. I've experienced  them myself. And it's not just cross-gender friendships, but any relationship with someone who is different than us in some fairly obvious way.

I'm tremendously excited about this conference where we'll have the opportunity to discuss what it is to be a friend and how to be a better friend. Jesus showed us so much about friendship and I can't wait to share that with you guys!

If you're interested in participating in the Sacred Friendship Gathering, you can go here to register. It's just $50 for registration and space is limited.

And if you're in the Chicago area at the end of April, definitely get in touch with me and let's hook up!

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How have your ideas about friendship changed over the years? What aspect of cross-gender friendships would you like to see discussed?