Kelly Flanagan - True Companions Study Guide: Five Sessions on How to Show Up in Your Most Important Relationships

InterVarsity Press
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2021 by Kelly M. Flanagan

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Live the questions now.

Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

RAINER MARIA RILKE

T RUE COMPANIONS is a book for everyone.

Its right there in the subtitle: A Book for Everyone About the Relationships That See Us Through. Thats true of this study guide, as well. Ive structured these five sessions so that you can work through them with a friend or a bunch of friends, with your spouse or lifelong partner, with a class or your church small group, with a parent or a child or a sibling, and even, simply, with yourself. Before we go any further, though, I would encourage you to stop thinking of this as a study guide.

Think of this, instead, as Companion Camp.

I first used that phraseCompanion Campat a marriage retreat. The beginning of every marriage retreat is fraught with tension. Some couples are there to save their marriage, and the retreat weekend is a last-ditch effort. Theyve tried couples counseling already, and it has not worked, so the stakes are high. They tend to feel a decent amount of despair, and they are skeptical about the sustainability of any hope the weekend may give them.

Some couples are there not because their marriage is failing but because it is stagnating. For them, the weekend is an effort to take their marriage to the next level. They feel determined and committed, but they are a little skeptical, too, probably because theyve already tried to find this other level everyone speaks of, with nothing to show for it.

On the other hand, some couples are there as a celebration of their marriage. For them, all is well and they are simply seeking a little time away to rest, relax, and enrich their relationship. Nevertheless, they too feel a bit of trepidation at the beginning of the weekend because, deep down, they worry the retreat is going to stir up issues in the marriage that need not be stirred up.

So, yeah, fraught with tension.

I was leading a marriage retreat of about thirty couples, and Im guessing the couples were pretty evenly divided among these three types. We assembled on a Saturday morning, and sixty sets of eyes stared at me with equal parts caution and distrust. The question written on those faces was clear: What are you about to do to us? The first thing I did to them was to read the introduction to True Companions, including excerpts like this one:

In her Pulitzer Prizewinning novel, Gilead, Marilynne Robinson writes, The moon looks wonderful in this warm evening light, just as a candle flame looks beautiful in the light of morning. Light within light.... It seems to me to be a metaphor for the human soul, the singular light within the great general light of existence. Or it seems like poetry within language. Perhaps wisdom within experience. Or marriage within friendship and love. What if marriage is a singular light within the great general light of companionship, but we keep trying to turn it into the big light itself? What if uncovering the secrets to a stellar marriage isnt as important as finding our way to the truths at the heart of true companionship?

When I finished reading, I looked up and said, So, you can quit thinking of this as a marriage retreat. Instead, I want you to think of it as Companion Camp. The shift in energy was palpable. You could see hope animate some eyes. You could see weight lift from some shoulders. You could see tenderness smooth out some brows.

How do you fix your relationship? That question is riddled with so much pressure and anxiety and stress it is best left unasked. Heres an entirely different question: How do you show up as the best companion you can be in your most important relationships? The answers to that question can take the pressure off, instill hope rather than fear, and make your relationships more joyful and less stressful. So, right here, right now, I want to say the same thing to you:

Welcome to Companion Camp.

Camp is both entertaining and challenging, playful and meaningful. We are going to talk about the things that are most important to your relationships, but we are not going to talk about them in ways that leave you feeling raw and exposed and undone. We are going to have fun times and hopeful conversations and, in the end, you will have a new vision for how you can best show up in every relationship that matters to you.

Welcome to Companion Camp!