Essays From West of 98: It All Turns On Friendship
A web of friendships within a place isn't just helpful to community, it's absolutely necessary
Author’s note: sometimes life happens beyond the the 98th Meridian and the newsletter gets unavoidably detained beyond its usual publication date. My apologies for the late delivery of this.
Community does not work without friendship.
If you’ve read my work for any length of time, you know I feel strongly about the concept of loving one’s neighbor. The Lord made it fairly explicit as his second greatest commandment. Even if it is important, it can still be a difficult task. There are no asterisks for people we don’t like, people who are hard to love, or moments when we don’t feel up to it. Love of neighbor is the guiding principle behind the “Rural Church and State” podcast that I launched last year with my friend Dan Stewart.
Love of neighbor has many dimensions. Friendship is one of those dimensions. It is a dimension that transcend many of life’s problems and squabbles, strengthening the tie of human relationships that might otherwise fray or fall apart. Recently at Front Porch Republic, in an essay commemorating FPR’s 15th anniversary, co-founder Mark T. Mitchell praised the positive force of friendship:
“Friendship is, in fact, a vital key to any flourishing political order, for friendship is rooted in affection and a commitment to the good of the friend, which translates in the aggregate to a commitment to the common good. And friendship is necessarily local. One cannot be friends with a nation. One cannot be friends with the world. One can only be friends with persons…”
I agree. In fact, I would suggest that healthy local communities cannot exist without friendship. A collection of people in a place without the web of friendships and interpersonal connections is merely a group of separate lives within proximity. Sure, they may pass each other on the street or wave at one another as they pull their car into their respective garage (and promptly shut the door behind them), but human bonds are dubious at best. If one person left, they would be replaced by another person in that house and the relationship-less dance would carry on.
Community is different. Community shares life together. Community celebrates triumphs of the individual and the collective. Community cheers for student athletes who wear the school’s colors, even if they don’t know their name. Community takes pride in a new business or a new community activity that makes the place just a little better. Community uplifts and encourage the sick among us and folks in need. Community prays for one another, organizes a benefit, and delivers a meal when a family needs it. When death comes, community grieves together. It grieves for the person lost, what they meant to the collective group, and what they meant to the loved ones who are left. None of this exists without a web of friendship weaving throughout all those interactions, whether we realize it or not.
“A Place on Earth” was Wendell Berry’s second novel. It takes place in the fictional Port William during World War II. Mat Feltner is a farmer, bank director, and one of the community’s most respected citizens. In the book, Feltner’s son Virgil has gone off to war. Virgil turns up missing in action and is later confirmed as killed. There’s a poignant scene in which many friends gather at the Feltner home to grapple with the news. The pastor, relatively new to the place, appears on the scene. He awkwardly attempts to comfort the family with a heavy-handed recitation of Scripture. He gives all the impression of a man trying to do what he thinks he is *supposed* to do in that moment, whether it fits or not. It goes about as awkwardly as you’d expect. The pastor retreats and the Feltners soak up the love from their friends in the room who understood that merely being there is what was needed in the moment.
There is no community on earth that won’t deal with its own set of problems, even if it is a healthy community. People will get crossways with one another. Humans will do each other wrong. Someone will succeed where others failed and resentment will fester. Some people just do not like each other. Berry’s Port William stories are filled with these problems between humans. And yet, community prevails because of that web of friendship.
One of Berry’s more famous quotes is the notion in caring for our places, “it all turns on affection.” Indeed it does. Far be it from me to mess with Wendell Berry’s genius, but I would suggest that, in the case of building healthy community for the long haul, it also turns on friendship.
James Decker is the Mayor of Stamford, Texas and the creator of the West of 98 website and the Rural Church and State and West of 98 podcasts. Contact James and subscribe to these essays at westof98.substack.com and subscribe to him wherever podcasts are found.
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Love this line James: "A collection of people in a place without the web of friendships and interpersonal connections is merely a group of separate lives within proximity."
Have you read Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer?