Friends touch the soul Photo: zhrefch / flickr CC
What is a friend?
Margaret Roy considers what it means to be a friend
This is something I have given a lot of thought to as a psychotherapist. What makes people happy? What are they looking for?
A very dear friend broke up with her husband. It was not a good relationship for her. When she found someone else I was a little disturbed. Her need was not to be alone. Sure enough, many years later, she is still with this second husband and she has an anchor in this world, but she is still not happy. In fact, she has dug a very deep trench for herself and, I think, ceased to grow many years ago.
We all know people like this and have regrets that we may not have been there for them, often divided by geography or other circumstances.
What is the difference between acquaintances and friends? Mainly because of my work, I have hundreds of acquaintances. I have a great respect for many and a fondness for quite a few. They touch different parts of my life and I hope they are as enriched in the encounter as I am. Friends touch the soul.
I have only a few friends and count myself very lucky. I used to say they were the jewels in my crown! Friends are the companions of your soul. They are who you are. They never take. There is nothing you would not give them, whatever the cost or inconvenience. I would not refuse the friend who needed my help to commit suicide, even though the burden would be awesome in so many ways.
It may be years since you last saw a friend (in this geographically dispersed world); yet it is as if there is no gap when you meet up. Often, there is no need for talk. The deep silence is a meeting of souls, not minds (or egos). You are not only accepted for who you are; the very encounter is a nourishing acknowledgement of unity. How can you ever be alone on your journey? You are free to take the risks, to explore and reach out knowing you are real in the land of the heart, the very core of being. Friends nourish your soul and hold you steady on your journey.
I sometimes feel ‘activists’ are out there trying to save the world because they are running away from the one person who really needs them: their Self. How do our concerns reflect who we are? Are we just a collection of labels? None of my friends are Quakers! And yet Quakers and the Quaker Way are very close to my heart. What does that tell me?
In looking at the depth of relationships, I feel sad and drained at the superficiality that can be described as ‘fun’, or gives rise to the quick fix of the sound bite, the stimulus every two or three minutes of modern ‘entertainment’ – not to mention the video game or today’s television diet of soaps, reality TV, football and Wimbledon. They say sport was invented to keep the working class tame! What do Quakers succumb to?
When we say we do things in community, when we seek ‘deep listening’, do we nourish each other in the Spirit? What is the Spirit? How many have experienced a ‘gathered Meeting’? When we call ourselves the ‘Society of Friends’, what do we mean by it? How do we make real our Meetings?
