Perhaps the greatest compliment Jesus of Nazareth paid his followers was to call them his friends. "I shall not call you servants any longer," he told his apostles, "for a servant does not share his master's confidence. No, I call you friends. ..." (John 15:15). My wife and I worship with Quakers, who describe themselves as the Religious Society of Friends. I suspect we are blessed with more "friends" than many other Americans, if for no other reason than it's how we address one another.
My eighth book, which will appear in spring, honors a friend of long standing. Its dedication is borrowed from Samuel Taylor Coleridge: "Friendship is a sheltering tree."
Christianity has always hallowed love as the greatest of virtues, but friendship is love's practical expression, and it knows no distinction as to gender, class or even age. Friendship is based on a commonality of interest, affection, mutual concern and responsibility. Friends can rely on one another. Men and women will always seek one another for romance and marriage, which are exclusive relationships. But they are also finding ways to expand their inclusive circle of friends through the Internet.
Best of all is that, unlike dating services, access is free — at the moment, at any rate. You probably had pen pals when you were growing up, but that depended on introductions, letters and postage. The Internet takes the same idea and makes it much better. Friendster.com is the brainchild of Jonathan Abrams, a 33-year-old Canadian, who works in a small office in Sunnyvale, Calif., with a staff of eight maintaining the servers that daily cope with 1.5 million members madly making friends.
The service works on the same basis as the game called "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon," named for the actor. The idea is that Bacon can be linked to any other actor by a chain of six or fewer actors who have appeared in films together. For example, John Wayne appeared in "The Longest Day" with Robert Wagner, who was in "Wild Things" with Kevin Bacon. Although the Duke is dead, he is related to Kevin by just two degrees.
What friendster.com offers is the opportunity for individuals to share their friends with one another, geometrically expanding one's social circle. What keeps the networking honest is that applicants can't become members unless their friends vouch for them (not unlike providing employment references).
Boo Davis, a 28-year-old newspaper artist, spends upwards of an hour every day chatting with 40 friends she met on friendster.com. Her passion is making quilts, and she has already been invited to join a "young, hip, quilting circle, which I could not find any other way." She admits the site "is only the jumping-off point for all kinds of friendship" and not an end in itself.
"Friendship takes time and work, sharing bad times as well as jokes and cocktails, when it's easy to be charming and fun, and being online does not change that."
I suspect Jesus would approve.
(David Yount's latest book is "What Are We to Do? Living the Sermon on the Mount" (Sheed & Ward). Contact him at P.O. Box 2758, Woodbridge, VA 22193, or dyount(at)erols.com.)
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