The Socs

I was reading my friend's (a fellow Fuller person) blog today and he was talking about how nice it was last Friday night to spend the evening actually socializing with friends, something that from what he wrote sounds like it doesn't happen very much for him. (I was fortunate to be among the friends socializing and was tickled to be appreciated)

This evening I was thinking: we don't spend enough time doing that in seminary. And it's not really the seminary's fault. There's this weird mode of thinking that people go into that basically puts school at the top of the priority list (or maybe church), with everything else pretty much being optional. So if you're too tired, you don't go to your friend's birthday party (I'm both guilty of this and the victim of it - and when you shell out $60/head to buy people dinner, it's not really happy when they don't show up or stay for dinner) (but I'm not bitter of course) or you call and say you can't do dinner because you're tired or you don't go to the movie or whatever it is.

And you know what? That's really dumb of us. Socialization is vital to our well-being. Hell, we spend all this time extolling the virtues of community in our classes, the very necessity of it for healthy Christian living, and then we hole up in our apartments maybe watching a movie and pretty much never doing much of anything else.

My friend Jeannette taught me the name for it: "Fuller flaking."

I'm glad I had a few years in the real world before going to seminary. I learned that making friends is tough so keeping them is paramount. And you keep them by...duh...spending time with them. Even if it's inconvenient. Because it always turns out to be fun. It's worth it.

So I guess I'm telling you guys in school to please force yourself to have dinner or see a movie or just do anything with someone else besides just your spouse. It's important for your well-being.

And if you're my friend, no more flaking. I want you to please take me up on that dinner invitation which always stands. If you've never let us cook for you, you've been missing out. :)

Oops, my name is earl is on. Gotta go.