Eighty Percent

Eighty percent of success is showing up, according to Woody Allen.

I've come to believe that it's 80% of friendship as well.

One of my favorite movies is Tombstone, primarily because of the theme of loyalty shown in the friendship between Doc Holliday and Wyatt Earp. Whenever an important event for Wyatt is going down, Doc shows up. He's there for drinks, laughs, and shootouts. In Wyatt's darkest times and grandest accomplishments, Doc is there. During a particularly difficult and dangerous time, another character asks Doc why he's there.



Last Sunday morning when I stood up in front of our church and delivered a sermon for the first time, I had some friends show up. I invited them without an expectation that they would or should be there. Sure, I wanted them there, but only to share with them what I'd been working on for the past few weeks. I didn't necessarily think that their presence would make a huge difference to me. I was wrong. Their faces in the crowd at a time of risk and adrenaline and joy and priority for me was a distinct act of friendship. I'm not sure there are many greater acts.

For several of these friends, showing up was anything but convenient. For some, church is one of the last places they'd expect to find themselves on a Sunday morning. For others, it required a detour of sorts in travel plans. But they showed up anyway. With no real expectation of personal gain, they were there.

Friendship is no more complicated than that.

I remember when I used to coach and our team would play at a gym in the suburbs of Des Moines. Almost every time we came to that gym, I had friends from the area in the gym. They could have cared less about the teams and players on the court. It was a never a good basketball game. They had better things to do on a Tuesday or Friday night. And it wasn't like we could hang out and spend a lot of time together; I had a game to coach, after all. They were there for no other reason than that eighty percent of friendship is showing up.

You can't show up to everything. And I don't believe anyone expects that of you. But when you can, and when you do, you will be making a statement. And it will be a statement long felt between friends.


***My writing has been primarily absent over the past month or so as I've spent much of my energies preparing for my Sunday morning sermon debut, a message on Jonah 3. My next several posts, therefore, will be either commentary about the experience, key passages from the message, or pieces I couldn't fit in but enjoyed writing anyway.