"He was never really my friend ..."

When a friend turns against us, abandons us or fails us in a most serious way, our most common reaction (in my experience) is to explain the action as the former friend's true nature; "I guess I never knew what he was really like. Now I know what kind of a person he was all along, and he sure wasn't my friend."

We assume that the worst of what the friend demonstrates is his "true nature;" we were fooled and deceived, and now this act of treachery sheds light on reality.

Yet, why is it that we choose to assume that the worst in a person is that person's true nature? Why can't we assume that in the past, that person had true friendship with us?

Consider an (imaginary) strong man who roamed the wilderness, killing wild animals with his bare hands for his food, not only surviving but thriving in all kinds of weather.  One day, the land where he lives is invaded by people who attack him and try to drive him away.  As a fearless and ruthless warrior he fights off one attack after another, until finally his invaders begin to prevent him from getting food and tire him in endless harassment. Finally, tired and weakened he succumbs in battle and is killed.

No one would doubt that this man was at one time physically very strong.  Yet that changed. (Don't take this story as an "allegory" for friendship, it is only demonstrating one isolated point.)

Few (if any of us) are as strong in friendship and in love as my imaginary warrior was in hunting in battle; even if a friend succumbs after the second or even first turbulence hits a friendship, that doesn't mean he never truly cared for us.

The same is true of religion; when someone abandons or renounces the religion we adhere to, our first reaction is often to assume that the person never truly believed it in the first place.  That person was fooling others, and possibly themselves - true belief never existed.  But who's to say that they didn't believe it authentically in their heart at one time?  The onslaughts of life can shake even the firmest of human strength.

In friendship, relationships, religion, family roles, etc. we all have the free will to do right and wrong, and to react to others in a right or wrong way.  This means that even the strongest of love and the strongest of faith can fail - especially if we are so proud to think that we have some special strength so that we could never unjustly turn on a friend or abandon our faith.

Deceptions and revelations of people's "true nature" do happen; but I think at times we are too willing to write off the battles, the victories and the defeats of life to an oversimplified explanation, rather than to allow them to be simply what they are.