This wasn’t intended to be post #2. But Spirit leads, so here we go with this one.
From Radical Friendship:
Science is now voicing how important & necessary friendship is. Loneliness has been referred to as a global health pandemic by several world governments. It decreases life expectancy even more than anxiety, depression, or smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
But when friendships are weak, the cost isn’t limited to our personal health. Families, communities, and even social movements become more vulnerable to outside stressors when friendships erode. Talking to the healing and justice director at Black Lives Matter Global Network, they said this: “how we protect and care for each other along the way (to liberation), how we come through connected and stronger at the other end, are possibly the most critical and meaningful questions we face.”
Marginalized and targeted communities experience violence from external sources making friendships an especially important, potentially life-saving force of safety, comfort and care. (This is true. Everything I’m learning about friendship is coming from black women. Friendship is everything to them. It is to me too. This is why I’m seeking data on friendship).
We are lucky to be living in a time where the value of friendship is now in our awareness, but we also live in a world where “industries, institutions, and political regimes benefit when we hate ourselves and disconnect from each other.”
That last part is why I made this post second. It flows from my last post where I’m articulating the church is teaching self-hate (intentionally or not). Our culture is punishing care and rewarding disconnection.
The post I was going to write will flow naturally from this one too. I’m listening to the Spirit. These posts exhaust me. It’s spiritual and emotional labor. My spiritual advisor said this is the equivalent to what a physical workout is for my body.
There is Life Out There 