Rabbi, writer, and storyteller Harold Kushner shares a story about friendship:
I was sitting on a beach one summer day, watching two children, a boy and a girl, playing in the sand. They were hard at work building an elaborate sand castle by the water’s edge, with gates and towers and moats and internal passages. Just when they had nearly finished their project, a big wave came along and knocked it down, reducing it to a heap of wet sand. I expected the children to burst into tears, devastated by what had happened to all their hard work. But they surprised me. Instead, they ran up the shore away from the water, laughing and holding hands, and sat down to build another castle. I realize that they had taught me an important lesson. All the things in our lives, all the complicated structures we spend so much time and energy creating, are built on sand. Only our relationships to other people endure. Sooner or later, the wave will come along and knock down what we have worked so hard to build up. When that happens, only the person who had somebody’s hand to hold will be able to laugh. (When All You’ve Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough)
A few weeks back, Connie and I celebrated our 42nd anniversary. I can still remember the day when I told Connie’s dad that I was going to ask her to marry me. He smiled at me and said, “Don’t you just want to be good friends?”
At the time I was taken aback and of course said that I loved her too much to just be friends. Now, as I reflect on our 42 years together, I have come to see that conversation in a new light. I know that her father was only joking about friendship as opposed to marriage, but there is something to be said for remaining friends, even though we have become husband and wife.
Friendship, at all levels, is a gift. Someone has said that there are “friends of the road” – those who pass through—and “friends of the heart” – those with whom we are invested, connected, safe, and growing. This latter group -- these close, intimate, best friends are a rarity and we probably have only a handful in this life. These are soul mates and they are rare. As Thomas Moore notes in his book Soul Mates, “Friendship is not essentially a union of personalities, it is an attraction and magnetism of souls.” And the double blessing is when this soul mate is also your life mate.
All friendships go through stages and trials, even crises. This is also true of those special friendships. What usually keeps them together is a deep sense of commitment, communication, respect and grace. I hope that you have found such a friend or are such a friend.
Kushner is right – the waves of life, the really big ones will inevitably come and knock down the complicated structures we have worked so hard to erect in life and how blessed we are to have somebody’s hand to hold through it all. Over and over again I have seen this as a pastor. I have seen it in the lives of those who have made plans and worked hard to build a life together only to face a crisis so sudden and unexpected that their world began to tumble in around them. But they found strength and the ability to go on after the castles had tumbled in because they were able to hold on to one another. In our life together, while the waves have not been so overwhelming, Connie and I have experienced the sustaining, comforting and empowering power of not only an enduring friendship but also of the love that undergirds it. And for that, I am ever grateful.
Let me leave you with an insight from Thomas Moore: “If the body is in pain, one of the first things to look for is infection; if the soul is in pain, we might look for lack of friendship.”
Peace
