My Son's Favorite Toy; Thoughts about Circles and Friendship

So we bought my son this playmat thing.

My son loves this thing.

It's called the Fisher Price Flutterbye Dreams Lullabye Birdies Musical Gym. If you ask me, that's too much of a product description. I also believe it is the first time I have ever seen the phrase "lullabye" and "gym" and "musical" in the same sentence. It's pretty random. It's almost like having the phrases "vasoline" and "chocolate" and "show tunes" all in the same sentence.

Okay, maybe not that weird.

FRIENDS MOVING
So I was listening to this sermon yesterday about Jesus, and how he had like four layers of people he dealt with. There were the masses. Then, in Acts, it says that there were like, 120 people who were really devoted, and these were the people who formed the genesis of the early Church. Then, there were 72 disciples he sent out. Then there were the 12 main disciples. And then there were the 3, Peter, James and John.

Matthew 17
The Transfiguration
After six days Jesus took with him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There he was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and his clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus. Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good for us to be here. If you wish, I will put up three shelters–one for you, one for Moses and one for Elijah.” While he was still speaking, a bright cloud enveloped them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”

First off, what an incredible experience for Peter and James and John. I mean, wow. And Peter's reaction to the whole thing was like the first building program in history. "Let's build something!"

The speaker's point was that Jesus spends no time apologizing to the other 9 for taking the 3 up on the mountaintop for the whole transformation experience. I guess even Jesus knows that you can't be best friends with 72 people.

It got me thinking about people and relationships. Basically, there are like 5 circles in this story:

OUTER CIRCLE: The masses, people you interact with everyday
120 Group: People you know, and maybe send Christmas cards to
72 Sent Out: The people you interact with probably a couple times a month, though pretty surface
12 Disciples: The people who come over and eat at your house. You see these people definately once a week
3 Inner Circle: The people who KNOW you. These are probably every day people.

It's clear that the most important people are in those last two circles. Our tendency, with cell phones and gadgets and IM and email is to get shallower and shallower with more and more people. Instead of, you know, getting deeper and deeper with just a few.

Who's In Your Inner Circle?
I was thinking about this because I've been helping my buddy, Jonathan, pack up his stuff because he's moving to go to Chicago, where he is pursuing his Phd in Theology. Not just pursuing it, but he will track it down, pin it to the ground, and rip its throat out. Metaphorically, speaking.

This is all very exciting.

Very exciting.

I mean, sort of. I have a bunch of his stuff in my garage, to help store it. Every morning, when I go out in my garage to feed my cat, I see his stuff. It hit me this morning that pretty soon, I'm not going to see his bookcases and his futon. And when I don't, I won't see him anymore.

That made me unbelievably sad this morning. That stupid futon, with those stupid rainbow-colored straps holding the stupid mattress together.

I know it's a good thing - no, a God thing - that he and Kari are moving, but that doesn't make it much easier.

My phone has 9 speed dial numbers. He and his wife are numbers 7 and 8. Seven and Eight never seemed like such big numbers before.