be my friend
FRIENDSHIP is a mirror to presence and a testament to forgiveness. Friendship not only helps us to see ourselves through another’s eyes, but can be sustained over the years only with someone who has repeatedly forgiven us for our trespasses as we must find it in ourselves to forgive them in turn.
A friend knows our difficulties and shadows and remains in sight, a companion to our vulnerabilities more than our triumphs, when we are under the strange illusion we do not need them. An undercurrent of real friendship is a blessing exactly because its elemental form is rediscovered again and again through understanding and mercy. All friendships of any length are based on a continued, mutual forgiveness. Without tolerance and mercy all friendships die.
In the course of the years a close friendship will always reveal the shadow in the other as much as ourselves, to remain friends we must know the other and their difficulties and even their sins and encourage the best in them, not through critique but through addressing the better part of them, the leading creative edge of their incarnation, thus subtly discouraging what makes them smaller, less generous, less of themselves.
Friendship is the great hidden transmuter of all relationship: it can transform a troubled marriage, make honorable a professional rivalry, make sense of heartbreak and unrequited love and become the newly discovered ground for a mature parent-child relationship.
The dynamic of friendship is almost always underestimated as a constant force in human life: a diminishing circle of friends is the first terrible diagnostic of a life in deep trouble: of overwork, of too much emphasis on a professional identity of forgetting who will be there when our armored personalities run into the inevitable natural disasters and vulnerabilities found in even the most ordinary existence…
Friendship transcends disappearance: an enduring friendship goes on after death, the exchange only transmuted by absence, the relationship advancing and maturing in a silent internal conversational way even after one half of the bond has passed on.
But no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true friend or sustaining a long close relationship with another, the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the self nor of the other, the ultimate touchstone of friendship is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone.
…
FRIENDSHIP
in CONSOLATIONS: The Solace, Nourishment
and Underlying Meaning of Everyday Words by David Whyte
What about sin as a means to grace?
THE GRACE OF CONFLICT
We are only ever trying
to meet The One.
Which means,
meeting ourselves.
Fully.
Every conflict in relationship
between family, friends or lovers
is an invitation:
To feel our feelings more completely.
To connect with ourselves more deeply.
To get clearer about our path.
To breathe.
To find our voice. To speak our truth.
To know who we are.
To discover:
What we want
and do not want.
What is okay
and what is not okay.
(And it’s okay
to be
‘not okay’,
okay?)
Through the storm of conflict,
we are invited to clarity
and to the truth of our humanness.
Remember:
We are only ever being shown
the frightened parts of ourselves
still crying out for love!
– Jeff Foster
patience is our closest friend
the bestie we rarely acknowledge
as the truest ally of our healthiest self
our one true sister
we rarely learn to develop a deep and loving relationship with her
not realizing what we’re missing
patience tells us truth as nothing else can
reveals levels of impatience, insecurity, immaturity and understanding
within ourselves
As well as inside
every relationship
every circumstance
we encounter
I want to leave every interaction feeling full
Not drained to the marrow of my soul
I’ve got my own anthem playing here
volume on high
a very personal love song
written just for me
with extra notes played
thrillingly
Every time I say ‘no’
my need for silence
drawn from the beauty
of listening
to that score
where I find the glory
of the burning bush
no shoes allowed
I kiss the ground
In these virtuous moments
where I find all the answers to
my unique ‘yes’
And…
Amen
💞
Amy Lloyd
life: acoustic & amplified 