When I was a kid, I said what was on my mind, so one day I came home from school and told my mom I didn’t have any friends. Mom, being the crusader she was, immediately marched down to the elementary school and demanded to know why her son didn’t have any friends.
“Nonsense!” my teacher said, “Dwight has many friends. He is well liked by the other children.”
Mom came home with the good news. I had friends! I just didn’t know who any of them were.
Maybe you have many friends, and you know their names.
Or maybe you don’t.
Some of us know what it’s like to be left out, kicked out, told that we don’t belong.
Excluded.
Undervalued even.
Some of us have lived our lives as outsiders.
If that’s you, then hey, I would be honored if you’d like to hang with me.
I like people like you—people who are 100% unique, who don’t march in lockstep with the cool kids.
I drive an old car, wear blue jeans, and my favorite activity is taking a long walk with God —kinda like Tevye on Fiddler on the Roof.
I’m learning this whole friendship thing, but if you’d like to hang out, here’s what I have for you: Once a week I’ll send you a note—tell you something about me. If you’d like, you can respond and tell me something about you. If you don’t want to respond, no worries—that’s good too.
And, yeah, I write books. But that’s for another day. Let’s start here: Let’s be friends.