So and so has 537 friends. Wow. I only have a few. There should perhaps be another category, Facebook Acquaintances. Those people we have met, but have little or no true affection for.
The truth is, we only have so much time and relationships take time. I barely have enough time to take care of my family and teach and of course squeeze in some practicing and gardening. Spending quality time with friends often gets put on the back-burner.
In the sixth grade my best friend Casey moved away. This sent me into a clinical melancholy. I'm still not completely recovered. With the wisdom of a child, I knew that things would never be the same again after that. She is still my forever friend and we visit and text from Texas to Minnesota, but it isn't the same when you can't drop by and chit chat or go for a quick coffee. Visits take planning and it costs a lot to get there.
When we lose a friend our lives change and not always for the better. This spring there is another friend I am missing.
Different friends have different functions in our lives--any friend worth having understands something about you that no one else completely gets.
Some words from Mark Nepo's The Book of Awakening:
Honest friends are doorways to our souls, and loving friends are the grasses that soften the world. It is no mistake that the German root of the word friendship means "place of high safety." This safety opens us up to God. As Sant Martin said, "My friends are the beings through whom God loves me." There can be no greater or simpler ambition than to be a friend.We all need a few good friends we can be safe with, knowing, as my precious sister always says, they they will sort the grain from the chaff and turn us back to our very best selves.
Here's to special friends from the past, and the good friends we have now, and the friends who are out there waiting for us.
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