{"id":9957,"date":"2014-07-22T16:09:17","date_gmt":"2014-07-22T20:09:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/?p=9957"},"modified":"2014-07-23T17:09:03","modified_gmt":"2014-07-23T21:09:03","slug":"whats-loyalty-got-to-do-with-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/unequallyyoked\/2014\/07\/whats-loyalty-got-to-do-with-it.html","title":{"rendered":"What’s Loyalty Got To Do With It?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

This post is one in a series on friendship, explored through the lenses of Stephen Sondheim\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>Merrily We Roll Along<\/a>\u00a0and C.S. Lewis\u2019s\u00a0<\/em>The Four Loves<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The trio at the center of\u00a0Merrily We Roll Along<\/em> aligns fairly naturally into C.S. Lewis\u2019s definition of friendship in The Four Loves<\/a><\/em>. \u00a0Frank is a composer, Charlie a playwright, and Mary an author\/critic, and, when they start working together in \u201cOpening Doors\u201d (below \u2014 somewhat schmaltzy staging), they move from companionship to true amity:<\/p>\n

Friendship arises out of mere Companionship when two or more of the companions discover that they have in common some insight or interest or even taste which the others do not share and which, till that moment, each believed to be his own unique treasure (or burden). The typical expression of opening Friendship would be something like, \u201cWhat? You too? I thought I was the only one.\u201d We can imagine that among those early hunters and warriors single individuals \u2013 one in a century? one in a thousand years? \u2013 saw what others did not; saw that the deer was beautiful as well as edible, that hunting was fun as well as necessary, dreamed that his gods might be not only powerful but holy. But as long as each of these percipient persons dies without finding a kindred soul, nothing (I suspect) will come of it; art or sport or spiritual religion will not be born. It is when two such persons discover one another, when, whether with immense difficulties and semi-articulate fumblings or with what would seem to us amazing and elliptical speed, they share their vision it is then that Friendship is born. And instantly they stand together in an immense solitude.<\/p><\/blockquote>\nhttps:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=K5OI8xlM-a0<\/a>\n

Even though the three friends are brought together by their creative spirits, it takes the audience a very long time to see how this spirit animated their friendship, because the show runs chronologically backwards. \u00a0For a good long while, Frank and Charlie aren\u2019t working together, and aren\u2019t even speaking to each other, so there\u2019s no chance to see them enjoying each other\u2019s delight. \u00a0Mary manages to keep her connections alive longer, but, her relationships with the two men are intrinsically less fruitful; since her oeuvre doesn\u2019t cross over with theirs. \u00a0(And they seem to have little interest in hers, given that the audience learns that she\u2019s written a bestseller, but otherwise is told nothing about her book).<\/p>\n

Instead of watching them\u00a0be<\/em> friends, the audience sees the trio\u00a0demand<\/em> that the others live up to the duties of a friend. \u00a0The pleas aren\u2019t necessarily illegitimate, but, as one of the attendees at my birthday party pointed out, astutely, that, although loyalty comes with friendship, if friends ever appeal\u00a0directly<\/em> to this duty, something already has gone very wrong in the relationship. \u00a0In normal circumstances, you\u2019d appeal to a friend\u2019s love, not their duty. \u00a0As Lewis puts it:<\/p>\n

Friendship is utterly free from Affection\u2019s need to be needed. We are sorry that any gift or loan or night-watching should have been necessary \u2013 and now, for heaven\u2019s sake, let us forget all about it and go back to the things we really want to do or talk of together. Even gratitude is no enrichment to this love. The stereotyped \u201cDon\u2019t mention it\u201d here expresses what we really feel. The mark of perfect Friendship is not that help will be given when the pinch comes (of course it will) but that, having been given, it makes no difference at all. It was a distraction, an anomaly. It was a horrible waste of the time, always too short, that we had together. Perhaps we had only a couple of hours in which to talk and, God bless us, twenty minutes of it has had to be devoted to affairs<\/em>.<\/p>\n

For of course we do not want to know our Friend\u2019s affairs at all. Friendship, unlike Eros, is uninquisitive. You become a man\u2019s Friend without knowing or caring whether he is married or single or how he earns his living. What have all these \u201cunconcerning things, matters of fact\u201d to do with the real question, Do you see the same truth?<\/em> In a circle of true Friends each man is simply what he is: stands for nothing but himself. No one cares twopence about anyone else\u2019s family, profession, class, income, race, or previous history. Of course you will get to know about most of these in the end. But casually. They will come out bit by bit, to furnish an illustration or an analogy, to serve as pegs for an anecdote; never for their own sake.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I particularly enjoy this quote, because when I went to college, parents and relatives would always be inquisitive about the new friends I\u2019d made, asking where they\u2019d grown up, what their parents did, or even what other classes they were taking. \u00a0I knew the answers to none of these, since I already knew that I liked\u00a0talking<\/em> to them, and all the rest seemed relevant only so far as it provided illustrative anecdotes for our discussions. \u00a0(Though a number of my friends turned out to disagree).<\/p>\n

When a friendship starts to weaken, maybe it sometimes makes sense to put less effort into\u00a0fixing<\/em> it than into just doing whichever part of it you like best, and seeing if that helps. \u00a0I\u2019ve sometimes told friends who are trying to decide whether to break up with a boyfriend or girlfriend to try just doing the things they like best for a week or a month \u2014 the things they\u2019d do if they knew their partner was shipping out, and they wanted to make the most of the time they had. \u00a0Solemn discussions about\u00a0where this relationship is going<\/em> seldom make the list.<\/p>\n

Those conversations may not be able to be prorogued forever, but after a month of doing the things you delight in, you may be more motivated to have it charitable, or it might be clearer that it\u2019s not worth having at all. Anything to avoid the fate of Frank, Charlie, and Mary, who used more of their time and energy to discuss their friendship than to participate in it, till all that was left was the history and the obligations.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post is one in a series on friendship, explored through the lenses of Stephen Sondheim\u2019s\u00a0Merrily We Roll Along\u00a0and C.S. Lewis\u2019s\u00a0The Four Loves. The trio at the center of\u00a0Merrily We Roll Along aligns fairly naturally into C.S. Lewis\u2019s definition of friendship in The Four Loves. \u00a0Frank is a composer, Charlie a playwright, and Mary an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":127,"featured_media":9961,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[233],"class_list":["post-9957","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-sondheim-symposium-ii"],"yoast_head":"\nWhat's Loyalty Got To Do With It?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"This post is one in a series on friendship, explored through the lenses of Stephen Sondheim\u2019s\u00a0Merrily We Roll Along\u00a0and C.S. 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