The Wilderness of Friendship: Forty Years of Hospitality, Vulnerability, and Wonder

The Wilderness of Friendship offers a counterpoint to the consensus that there is an epidemic of loneliness among men in the United States. Four men, friends since their days at Vanderbilt Divinity School, explore and describe the values and actions of more than forty years of friendship. Among them are hospitality of place and ideas, risking vulnerability to share life fully, a shared wonder at the amazing blessings of life, and a love for the wilderness, both literal and metaphorical, where there is always more going on than can be understood in the moment. What emerges is one vision of what it means to be a man, husband, father, friend: open, teachable, and above all, joyful.

Author: Bill Friskics-Warren,Bill Harkins,Paul Shupe
Publisher: Cascade Books
Published: 07/24/2026
Pages: 186
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.57lbs
Size: 9.00h x 6.00w x 0.43d
ISBN13: 9798385261659
BISAC Categories:
- Religion | Christian Living | Men's Interests
- Religion | Christian Living | Social Issues

About the Author
Bill Friskics-Warren spent three decades working for justice for unhoused people in Nashville. Since the year 2000 he has also written about Southern popular music for The New York Times.



Bill Harkins sees patients at the Cathedral Counseling Center in Atlanta. An Episcopal priest, he taught counseling at Columbia Seminary and has written on pastoral theology and clinical practice. Married to Dr. Vicky Harkins, they have two sons and four grandchildren. He lives in the mountains of north Georgia.



Paul Shupe is a retired United Church of Christ minister, who pastored churches in Maine, Wisconsin and Massachusetts. He lives in Portland, Maine with his wife, MaryAnn.



Bob Victorin-Vangerud taught philosophy for twenty years in Minnesota colleges and prisons. He lives in the Longfellow neighborhood of Minneapolis with his wife, Nancy.