What Does Friendship Look Like?

Well hello again my friends, this is Dick Foth with stories from the road. It's a wonderful opportunity that I have to be able to do this pretty much on a weekly basis and those of you who know me or listen to me know that you know he always talks about story, he talks about friendship, he talks about these kinds of things that like anybody can do or participate in and I intend to keep doing that. What's fascinating for me is I keep finding illustrations that substantiate the fact that story is at the heart of any kind of friendship. In just a couple of minutes I want to introduce you to two friends of mine that I've known for a long long time. We were together this past week in a place called Takoa, Georgia and I'll come back to that in a moment. But there's a fella who wrote a book that just fascinates me. I heard him speak some years ago and went out and bought one of his books. He's got several. His name's Arthur, C. Brooks. Arthur C. Brooks is a Seattle native who now resides in Bethesda, Maryland and in his background he was a classical musician for more than a decade even part of the Barcelona Spain City Orchestra or if you are in that area it's not Barcelona, it's Barcelona and he then went on to be an economist or maybe he was an economist the whole time he was a classical musician and played in that orchestra. But more recently in 2019 he became part of the Harvard Kennedy School and the Harvard Business School. In his book Love Your Enemies this is what he says about story and he references the fact that here in the United States maybe around the world we live currently in what he would call a culture of contempt. This is his language when we encounter one another as individuals and tell our stories we overwhelm contempt with something more powerful. Love. And then he goes on to talk about a friend of his, Dr. Uri Hassan who is a professor in the psychology department in the neuroscience institute at Princeton. One of the things that Arthur Brooks references is that when you try to win somebody's heart by reciting facts or evidence for most of us it doesn't work. If we are entrenched in our own belief systems and you give me other evidence I tend to believe my own belief system more than I believe you're a new facts. So his words again if facts don't matter to most people if their minds are made up in advance and they're immune to evidence how can we ever come together on any issue and he studied this subject for years. It seems that we will never see one of those arguments as worthy of consideration making my question this book he says to end the culture of contempt a quick exotic one at best. But he goes on to tell this story or this introduce us to this professor from Princeton who does this he they scan people's brains while they're telling each other stories to see what happens with brain waves and Hassan studies say that when telling or listening to a story Hassan says our brains do something fascinating we start to scan each other's brains before the story starts immediately as the story is starting something amazing is happening Hassan says the listener engages with the story and suddenly his or her brain waves lock into a common pattern with the storytellers his study show that if the listener was drawn deeply into the story his or her brain would actually get ahead of the narrative being shared anticipating actively predicting the speakers upcoming utterances it's that feeling you get that you just click with someone you can finish their sentences he says and he goes on to say this fascinating thing when people ask are you on my wavelength they usually mean it as a metaphor. Hassan's brain imaging shows that that isn't just a metaphor it's a real physiological phenomenon well last week I had a chance to fly out overnight from Denver to Atlanta it was picked up by a wonderful young staff person at a college called Tacoa Falls College and driven two hours northeast to Tacoa Georgia. Tacoa Georgia historically is famous for the fact that in 1942 5,000 young recruits army recruits in World War II landed there both physically and metaphorically to be trained as airborne Rangers those folks who would find themselves on the beaches on D-Day or behind the beaches on D-Day battle of the bulge operation over Lord Anzio Beachhead all those horrific places during World War II what they found there was that in the in the process of training that breaks us down and builds us up a brotherhood develops in that case these were all young men and Spielberg and Hank's series on PBS called Band of Brothers came out of that place it's fascinating then the just a few miles handful of miles from the town of Tacoa is Tacoa Falls College it has a waterfall that's fascinating it's not nearly as voluminous as Niagara but it is I'm told six feet higher it's beautiful location but Tacoa Falls College is a faith-based college that is home to a couple of thousand folks both residential and online and three of us were invited to come there for a day to meet with students I say three because the other two fellows were the ones who sort of teed up my invitation to join them I have known these two fellows for a long time we are dear friends and in no small part we are dear friends because we know each other's stories and after a breakfast at a house where we were staying last Thursday morning I said why don't I just put this this microphone this recorder out here and let's talk for just a few minutes about friendship and so we did that so I'd like you to meet it here they are it's an early morning in November and we are sitting at a dinner table dining room table a little house in Tacoa Georgia I'm sitting here with my friends Bob Rodin and John Ashcroff boys how are you this morning well rested well okay I love it love being with the two of you and we're we're here at a college called Tacoa Falls College and we get to sort of take the day and talk to the students and a couple hundred high schoolers who are coming in to check it out see if they have an interest in this we were just reminiscing around the table over breakfast about what is it what does friendship look like Bob you and I have been friends since you were a grad student at Wheaton College in 1966 so we're about 55-56 years John you and I have been friends since we were eight-year-olds and and I moved into your neighborhood for a year and for whatever reason it stuck and here we are 72 years down the we are much older it doesn't tad just a tad older you know but you know friendship is something that sticks other stuff doesn't there we go and friendship sticks loud too so here's the question how do I be a friend and how do I have a friend here's their thought I think one of the things about friendship is that when you have a friend you may not see them or even talk with them sometimes particularly living in different parts of the country for a much year but when you connect again you pick up right where you left off yeah that's how you know you have a friend it's at your 20th high school reunion in all of sudden you're 16 again which may or may not be good I think there's something about friendship that involves it's involved in trust and the most durable friendships I think come out of relationships where you've seen people at their best and at their worst and you trust them anyhow and their friends anyhow you know that even if you stumble if you fall hey this is what we've been through together before and I think that's one of the reasons like college roommates they've seen you at your worst they've seen when all the things were going wrong when you when you didn't study for the exam and you were in big trouble academically and but they didn't abandon you then so you have this expectation that they're of not being abandoned and always being able to find this kind of trusted help or comfort there's something about comfort comfortability and they don't put pressure on you they take pressure off you sort of a non-pressurized environment you know that that's an interesting comment about college roommates all of us spent time in Washington DC Bob you you let it in hominational gathering if you will of several hundred churches when from in the early 90s to on into the 2000s and John of course you were there as a senator and attorney general and what's interesting about Washington DC for me and I'm a kid for me is Oakland California and I didn't grow up in that environment or anything but watching people come into places of power or major responsibility who when they looked for friends because when you're in a place of power you don't know why people want to be your friends or you do know one way or the other and they reached back for high school or college friendships to come in to play basketball hang out for a weekend or do whatever it was because those guys knew them before they sat in the cat bird seat they knew them before they were powerful and they probably they probably have some stuff on them so you want to keep them close you know well you know what Harry Truman said no you mean the dog thing sure he said in Washington if you want a friend buy a dog yeah and I think that's really advice that highlights the difference between people who want something from you which Washington is full of if you have power and people who want to share something with you which is what friendships are there about shared experience in a context of trust and comfort and support so you look back to things that have verifiable comfort and support and trust in them instead of the the new guy who really is budding up to you because his organization needs a favor from Congress when you came to DC and your senator from Missouri and then became attorney general I all of a sudden because I was your friend all of a sudden I had new friends Bob you know you know and I asked myself the question when John is no longer in that position I wonder how many of my new friends by carriers new friends will go away and as it turns out that at least half of them that's a pretty good ratio well you know I thought I did pretty well actually and friendships are not static even false ones are not static there are people who might come to you for what you can do for them in one respect either from a position of power or something else who might decide wow there's something special here hmm I mean in a spiritual sense I keep thinking of Jesus and people came to him for what they could get from him in terms of either a healing or a miracle or a free lunch or whatever it was but I think there were people who over time said wait a second there's something really valuable here and I think that's true in terms of a lot of friendships people might start on one level and frankly friendships you think of the phrases that describe friendship you know and you know one of his Washington when you get betrayed is with friends like that who needs enemies and so friendships are dynamic yeah and some of them are deepened by trust and comfort and some of them are broken as a result of betrayal I can't think of anything that approach betraying you're having betrayed me in 72 years of friendship so that's pretty dang so we're okay so far so far so good so far so good so Bob you and John and I have pretty different backgrounds at one level as relates to family John had a father who was iconic in in my eyes he was he was a giant in a lot of ways challenged his boys to do noble things and all of that I had a father that I loved barely as my hero but along the way there were some challenges with my mom between him and my mom and so dad left in the but you come from a pretty different space where early on in Florida where you were brought up you didn't know your dad so forth and it was only in recent years relatively speaking that you sort of check that out but so here you are a young man being essentially raised by your grandma is that right yes so in those years when you were by yourself so you're your only child as it were raised by a grandmother did you have friends in that time frame you know it was interesting in that little town there were older guys older teenagers yeah who would take me under their wing at times go do stuff with me and not a lot but but enough to to kind of keep me connected and that was that was very very helpful and then I had uncles who sort of looked out for me and I think that's a those are very helpful things but but even more than that we I went to a little church and that church was about 30 people the pastor of that church every pastor they came I can remember going to the altar sometime just to say a prayer and the pastor would come and put end on his shoulder and say Bobby God God's with you he's with you you never forget things like that that even the pastor can become your friend isn't that interesting it's an and sister Ford was one of our pastors sister Ford sister Ford I can see her now with a hanky enter and just preaching away and she had a tender compassion heart and I can't I can't even recount the number of times that she came and put a hand on my shoulder so I'm I'm praying for you isn't that interesting I think the older adults who when you are a kid treat you like you're real yes that's huge and that's it that's at the heart of friendship I think probably is when you treat the other guy of the person like they're real and you and you walk with it one of my favorite definitions of friendship is a friend can sit is the person who can sit with you for two hours in silence and and not feel awkward it's very hard for a talker like me to sit for two hours in silence I don't even know if I could pull that off but that but that idea that you talked about John right at the front end here about thereness your present you're there it's a that's a powerful powerful deal and I've heard you talk both you and I've had this conversation about in friends you don't have to explain yourself to each other you know when you're with somebody that you don't know that well you have to kind of explain lots of these but with friends they know you and and you you just you accept each other for what you are I think that's that's really huge as well that that you that you don't have to explain yourself to your friend friends of the best whether new or old or whether it's the fact that old friends find ourselves together after years in a place like Tacoma Falls College in Georgia and we learn to become friends by hearing each other stories you've heard me say that probably dozens of times on this podcast and you will continue to hear me say that because for one thing it's such a fascinating thing to do is to read other people's lives by hearing their stories but you just get surprised I haven't mentioned this but before we go I just want to drop this in here sometimes I look at people and guess sometimes I think I know their stories or I've heard something about them so I think I know but that wasn't true when I went to Tacoma Falls College they have a wonderful president there his name's Dr. Bob Myers it's been there a dozen years and so I just asked my standard questions over lunch I think and I just said so Bob where were you brought up he said Chambersburg, Pennsylvania said grow up there all your years and through high schools yes say then what he said well I went to Penn State for a year found out college wasn't for me so I decided just go get a job I said where did you get a job turns out that he got a job in a police department in a large metropolitan area in Maryland I said really what did you do he said when I was on patrol I ran polygraph stuff I got into IT but my last few years I was a homicide detective and I hardly knew what to say next I mean it's obvious isn't it that the natural trajectory to being a president of a college would be for a bunch of years to be a police officer and more specifically for the last several years to be a homicide detective it's a natural segue to being a college president I'm sitting here and I'm thinking about that said well maybe it is a natural segue I don't know all I'm saying by that fun story is that we never know until we ask we never know until we listen but know this about your brain when you start hearing somebody's story your brain starts connecting with that person in a dimension it never does when it's just facts that are recited but here's a fact you can take this one to the bank I love doing this I love just getting on here and talking to you and thank you for subscribing thank you for listening and hopefully some of these thoughts and some of the comments of our wonderful guests will resonate and encourage us along the way in our own journey God bless that's it I'm out for now catch you a bit later it's a dick-foat saying goodbye you