I was thinking tonight about Chaim Potok’s “The Chosen”, and “My Name is Asher Lev”, and about a few others of his books really.

I was thinking about them because it is no secret that I’ve loved his books, and return to them every decade, it seems, in waves. They contain something deeply inward, something wise, that nourishes my soul.

Anyways, I was thinking about him and his books tonight, again wondering why I loved them so when I first read them, and continued to love them over the years.

There is the main reason: they are about young people who, in light of the progress of humanity in modern times, wrestle earnestly with the meaning and role of God in their lives, and in their worlds. God is a character in his books.

There is the other reason, though, as well.

His protagonists also struggle to find their places with people. And during that period of conflict in their lives, there is a loneliness to them- a sanctification of soul that is isolating and at times bleak. But within those periods, they also find a friend that is remarkable for their place in life. Someone who sticks close by, and someone who tries to be there and understand them, even though they are people of two different worlds.

As I get older, I am pretty familiar with the isolated part. I for decades had a hard time letting anyone except family members and a friend or two into the outer courts of my inner life. For those that were supposed to know me well, I think they would probably say they were kept at an arm’s length. I don’t know. It’s always been aush/pull for me. I sometimes wonder if I ever really learned what a friend looks like, or perhaps how to be one myself. Introverted, conflict-avoidant, with thin boundaries, entanglement is easy, extraction is a pit of quicksand, and engagement is risky. At least it has been for me. I learned to hold people away a long time ago, and I’ve paid for it as well, in loneliness and missed opportunities and relationships, and love lost.

I have loved Potok’s books in part because his protagonists are silent sufferers who, in the sphere of God’s grace, find empathy and intimacy through a special friend who walks with them through ard periods of their lives.

I reckon I’ve looked at those stories as a sort of hope for what can be, in a life where closeness is challenging and yet critical.