I have this friend (I’ll let you guess which one. Let’s just say he’s been featured before….) who can’t seem to pick a career path. “Maybe I’ll be a teacher”. Then 2 month later..”Maybe I’ll be a therapist”…..(March, April….)….”I’m thinking about going to law school”. Finally I said “Aaarrgghhh, JUST PICK SOMETHING!!!”.

Then I felt guilty. I had broken a rule that someone told me about just a few days earlier; something along the lines of “stay on your own side of the street”. This apparently means don’t tell other people how to live their lives. I think it came from the Al Anon 12 step program, but I have a feeling I’ve heard it somewhere before. Oprah’s probably said it a few times. I see the basic point, i.e. don’t get caught up in fixing other peoples problems as a way of avoiding your own. I think someone even more important than Oprah said something similar 2000 years ago.

My problem is this-like many other wise statements, this idea has been taken out of context and then blown up out of all proportion. We are now so afraid of getting involved in each other’s lives that we have become completely useless “friends”. When I was in college, one of the lay staff at church talked about how we walk with each other, but only in parallel, our paths never crossing. We are experiencing the same things as the person next to us but never sharing those experiences. I sometimes wonder if that’s why so many of us go to therapists to help shed some light on our lives. We are desperate for someone to comment, give their opinion, say SOMETHING! But we have been paralysed by our fear of breaking this “golden rule” as well as the scriptural ones we rightly pay more attention to, but can be just as easily exaggerated.

I don’t want to be a useless friend (or sister in Christ). I don’t want useless friends. I like to think I can take a little truth spoken with love, and I can speak it into my friend’s lives without causing a rift. There is a risk, I know. I might find out that my butt really does look big in those pants. Thanks for letting me know!

Read on HERE.

Philomena