Friendship Is Sacred

THIS is the most sacred thing I've encountered this week:

A letter from my best friend, my Brother Man.  In three short pages, my friend has extended such love and steadfast support, all the way from the other side of the country.  With the expense of only $0.44 for a stamp, he has given me a great gift - a token of friendship and an anchor of the unconditionality of our bond.

One of my favorite lines in this letter: "Your friendship gives me incredible comfort, quite like when you picture God I'm sure."

...Man, this guy knows how to make me cry!  Reading this, I feel so known and understood - which is, of course, the best thing about old friends.

I have always taken my friendships a little too seriously, usually capitalizing them when they become deep, intimate, most sacred.  I have been blessed with a handful of Friends so far in my life.  These are the folks for whom I will drive through the night if they need me there, who will always have the use of my couch as a place to crash, and who can always have my last $5.  

And these are the folks who help make up the face of my God, because they have manifested in my life some of the most relational aspects of God's nature, with their loyalty, respect, forgiveness and humor.  A friend loves us both for and in spite of ourselves.  And to be a friend is to choose someone else, in a way we don't get to choose the people who share our blood, so a friend doesn't HAVE to love us.   A friend chooses to esteem, honor and stand by another person...while still being ready to call them out on their crap!

Seems to me, that sounds a lot like God.

I like God as Father well enough, since my own father has so fabulously modeled what that role can be.  And God as Mother, as Lord, as Shepherd works too. But I've always been partial to the metaphor of God as Friend, because the love of my best friends have always filled me with the same kind of awe and deep gratitude that I feel when I think about all the grace God has ever offered me.  

The main difference is that the gratitude I feel for my friends stems from the knowledge that they could just as easily choose to leave my life; and I thank God that they stick around.  They help me believe that God is even that much more steadfast in God's presence and love.  God can be relied upon to be there when I need God, to offer me a place to crash, and to help me find what I need to make it to tomorrow.

As always, the Sufi poets seem to put it best:

"This is the kind of Friend

You are - 

Without making me realize

My soul's anguished history,

You slip into my house at night, 

And while I am sleeping,

You silently carry off

All my suffering and sordid past

In Your beautiful

Hands."

- Hafiz

So thank you, Brother Man, for giving me a few pieces of paper which will, in my silly heart, symbolize all the awe-inspiring love we offer one another, and all the love I find in God.