May 2008 (Vol. XXI, No. 5)

"Is there enough Silence for the Word to be heard?"

Blessings, dear friends of silence, wherever you may live! Many are the facets of friendship. To befriend ourselves--body, mind, emotion, spirit--and to make friends with our Inner Being, from the dark areas of fear and illusion to the golden glow of our gifts and goodness, can be like cultivating a sacred space, a garden that reflects our lives.

Then, one's friends are like the flowers in our garden, each a treasure with its own unique blossoming. While to befriend strangers--the poor and disenfranchised, peoples of all nations, even those we view as enemies--the unjust and greedy who create war and inequity while ignoring the devastation left behind--can be a lifelong challenge, we must seek the source of discord in prayer and friendship with the Source of all life. And to befriend our Earth in all we do may be our greatest and most important challenge. For without a viable planet, we are left homeless.

Throughout our lives, as we befriend the Silence, we travel deeper into the light of our Inner Sacred Chapel and higher into the Light of Love. Whatever the form, friendship is a mutual gift that eternally warms and blesses our hearts and souls.

It is a sweet thing, friendship, a dear balm

Shelly

It is a sweet thing, friendship, a dear balm,
a happy and auspicious bird of calm.

My friends have made the story of my life

Helen Keller

My friends have made the story of my life.
In a thousand ways they have turned all my
limitations into beautiful privileges and enabled
me to walk serene and happy in the shadow
cast by my deprivation.

Communication of secrets is the sign which manifests and proves the friendship

Marie-Dominique Phillippe

Silence is the property, the contemplative quality, the fruit of faith. Interior, mystical silence is a silence which stems from the intensity of loving faith ... the interior result of a heart that loves intensely. The presence in our hearts of a secret to be kept brings about a density which is interior silence. Communication of secrets is the sign which manifests and proves the friendship and total trust of a friend.

Friends are relatives

Eustache Deschamps

Friends are relatives you make for yourself.

The song from beginning to end, I found again in the heart of a friend

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I breathed a song into the air,
It fell to earth, I knew not where;
For who has sight so keen and strong,
That it can follow the flight of song--
The song from beginning to end,
I found again in the heart of a friend.

Ideally, friendships lead us into deeper communion with each other

Elizabeth-Anne Vanek Center to Circumference

Ideally, friendships lead us into deeper communion with each other; those we love mirror the divine reality and so draw us closer to the One they reflect. In our humanness, however, we can forget that the friend is only a reflection of God and instead invest ultimate meaning in the relationship.

Friends are people who care about you for who you are

Harold S. Kushner Living a Life that Matters

Friends have been defined as people who know you at your worst and like you anyway, people in whose company you can be yourself. But perhaps more than anything else, friends are people who care about you for who you are, not what you can do for them. There is a kind of holiness in true friendship, because it makes sure that we are never alone when we desperately need to not be alone.

Thou hast made me known to friends whom I knew not

Tagore

Thou hast made me known to friends
whom I knew not;

Thou hast given me seats in homes
not my own.

Thou hast brought the distant near and
made brothers and sisters of strangers.

A gift you give yourself

Robert Louis Stevenson

A friend is a gift you give yourself.

A friend is one to whom one may pour out all the contents of one's heart

Arabian Proverb

A friend is one to whom one may pour out all the contents of one's heart, chaff and grain together, knowing that the gentlest of hands will take and sift it, keep what is worth keeping and with a breath of kindness blow the rest away.

You need a friend

Anne Rivers Siddons Sweetwater Creek

"You don't need a big sister," Lulu said, "you need a friend. I'd much rather be that."

"Okay," Emily muttered shyly. "Only I don't know why. I'm just a kid."

"You know things most adults don't even think of. You care about the same things I do. That's a lot of what a friend really is. And you're strong. I've needed that. And you share your world, and you don't judge it. Those are very grown-up things; and Emily, I can't name one of my so-called friends who have them all."

Each friend represents a world in us

Annais Nin

Each friend represents a world in us, a world possibility not born until they arrive, and it is
only by this meeting a new world is born

The old couple's secrets

S. T. Georgiou Mystic Street

I asked the old couple what secrets they could tell me about living long and well. At first they looked at each other and laughed, then he declared,

"Things are as they are. I know my wife and she knows me. We don't hide from each other. We don't ask each other lots of questions, we aren't anxious, running around all the time. Everything is open between us. We say our prayers and do our work. Most of the day I am outside, and she is inside, and when we unite, we enjoy our company, thanks be to God."

Through the people who befriend, touch and influence our lives

Christopher Bryant

God acts upon us inescapably through the people
who befriend, touch and influence our lives.

A spirit of friendship

Dalai Lama The Art of Happiness

If you maintain a feeling of compassion, loving kindness, then something automatically opens your inner door. Through that, you can communicate more easily with other people. And that feeling of warmth creates a kind of openness. You'll find that all human beings are just like you, so you'll be able to relate to them more easily. That gives you a spirit of friendship.

A friend is someone who abide

Shaun McNiff

A friend is someone who abides. Waits.