What it Used to Be

It ain’t what it used to be. Every step is degraded from what it once was. The wooden beams are pitted in places and caved entirely in others. My sneakered toes balance on the ridge of relics as I climb. And the spaces between the steps, the gaps in the journey, seem farther and farther apart now. The Koko Crater path seems to be getting more dangerous over these past years, not less. I know there are political reasons this is happening, but it doesn’t change the state of steps.

I went with a friend who was able to complete the climb in fourteen minutes. That’s an impressive feat. I saw his green shirt ahead of me for a lot of the climb, pulling farther and farther away. And I thought about this past year that held some conflict in a friendship. Circumstances beyond anyone’s control led to ways we let each other down. So I was happy to be doing something together. Around the bridge over the distance between the lower portion of the climb and the upper portion of the climb I lost sight of the green shirt. Probably because I was keeping my eyes on the ground. “I’ll see him up there, I guess.”

Friendships are something I think about a lot. Their value in my life is beyond measure. And I am not the first to feel this way. Thinkers and teachers for millennia have explained the incalculable gift of friendship, of selfless and supportive care from another. For some this comes in the shape of a partner. For others it’s a “kindred spirit,” like in Anne of Green Gables. Yet for others, having a boon companion or a close bestie, whatever you want to call it, doesn’t come to pass.

A recent study conducted by Evite, the online invitation company, found that the average American has not made a new friend in five years. And the barriers to do this are only getting harder to scale. For ministers, for past surgeons general, for anyone in public health, this is not a surprise. An epidemic of loneliness is real and impacting many right in our midst. There are reasons for this, but those reasons don’t change the state of friendship for so many. So tending the friendships I have is deeply important to me.

I started to crest the hill. It was slow going. And then at my 11 o’clock I saw the green shirt coming back. I asked if he was heading back down, but he didn’t answer. Instead he turned, came up behind me, put a hand on my lower back and starting pushing me up the hill, gently, a little comically, like a shepherd. At the summit, I sat next to my friend in the whipping wind looking out over the Pacific. It ain’t what it used to be. It’s pitted and caved in places. There are gaps in the journey. But somehow the climb, scrambling over changed footholds as we each did, led to the quiet comfort, the gentle hand, the shared laughter, and a Pacific that seemed somehow all our own.

And for this I am humbly grateful today.

Rev. T. J.
minister@unitariansofhi.org