On the Great and Wondrous Gift of Friendship

Miguel Guía: Friendship - Realism Bronze layer Sculpture 2005

“For a friend with an understanding heart is worth no less than a brother.” (Homer, The Odyssey)

“After that, Jonathan became David’s closest friend. He loved David as much as he loved himself.” (1 Sam. 18:1)

Few things in life are as beautiful, consoling, or needful as friendship. The word friend, itself, though of Germanic origin, is from an Indo-European root meaning ‘to love’. In the Greek the word for friendship is ‘philia’ (φιλία) it is one of the ancient Greek words for love. It can also be translated as “affection” or “brotherly love”. There are two telling things to be drawn from this reference. First, it is considered a love “between equals” and second, it is the opposite of a ‘phobia’, fear. The Arts across their entirety have addressed in memorable representations the greatness of true friendship. In recent times Miguel Guía’s The Friendship (sculpture in bronze) captures the “moment and strength of a handshake” to mesmerizingly create the visual symbolism of both its metaphysical and visceral extensions. So unparalleled and deep-rooted is this relationship between two persons, this lifelong fidelity, that when it is sometimes broken its pain can remain a lifetime. The impact of our happiness on good and valued friendships is huge. At its best it is a source of unqualified love and enduring support. How valuable is friendship? Our greatest philosopher, Plato [through the ‘mouth’ of Socrates], leaves no doubt as to its inestimable value, “I would much rather acquire a friend than all of Darius’ gold.” And in the Scriptures so highly is friendship and its implications revealed to be, that it is often used in the context of God’s relationship with his people, “[t]he Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend” (Ex. 33:11).

C.S. Lewis the well-known British author and lay theologian, had much to say on friendship and he explored its many dimensions not only in his writings, but also in his private life where he cultivated it with a real pleasure and gave of himself generously. In his timeless The Four Loves (1960) where he directly explores the nature of love, he writes candidly in one place on the culminating point of genuine friendship:

“We meet like sovereign princes of independent states, abroad, on neutral ground, freed from our contexts. This love (essentially) ignores not only our physical bodies but that whole embodiment which consists of our family, job, past and connections. At home, besides being Peter or Jane, we also bear a general character; husband or wife, brother or sister, chief, colleague or subordinate. Not among our Friends. It is an affair of disentangled, or stripped, minds. Eros will have naked bodies; Friendship naked personalities.”

Friendship at its crowning point is like the shared understanding and trustworthy coordination of the aerial trapeze artists. It is the faultlessly timed dance in mid-air without the net. The feeling of complete trust.

The question of friendship has been a regular preoccupation of mine during my lifetime. I have tried my best to be a good friend, given my natural limitations and proclivity for solitude, I have not always succeeded. Yet not for the lack of trying and I have tried in most instances to make up for my absence with written correspondence. Given the vicissitudes in my own story and circumstances I have experienced both its deepest joys and harshest realities. This paradox is explained when we consider that true friendship does not grieve us intentionally [for we all make mistakes in our relationships], but all else which intentionally left us crushed was another thing altogether different, this was not friendship to begin with [even if it had us fooled for a time]. The wondrous Rumi has left us many inspirational reflections on friendship, and this amongst one of his most remembered, “[f]riend, our closeness is this: anywhere you put your foot, feel me in the firmness under you.” In the New Testament we find the moving account of the God-Man, himself, weeping at the death of his friend Lazarus whom he “loved” (Jn. 11:35-44). There is a temptation we should be careful of and this is not to dismiss the friendship of well-intentioned people simply because they might not have met our own ‘high standards’ of what friendship is all about. The truth is most of us set our expectations too high, not realizing that even we, ourselves, cannot ever hope to meet them. It is a wise thing to practise where we can, the benefit of the doubt when we suppose a dear friend especially, has let us down. Have there not been times when we would have wished for this very benevolence to come our way?

A good friend’s love is steadfast. This means steadfast loyalty and honest counsel when needed. “If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up” (Eccles. 4:10). A good friend helps to make life beautiful and bearable.

In recent times my health has not been the best. By the grace of God, much better of late. I wanted to be sure that if I was to be suddenly “raptured” my young children who ‘unearthed’ me later in my life [I was nearing my 50th year when we had our youngest boy] would have more than my essays or poetry to read. I would want for them to find something easily accessible about who their father was in his prime and what he might have meant to those who did know him in his realer context [with all of ‘the ups’ and all of ‘the downs’]. I thought it right, too, to add snippets from my dissertation reports and few literary reviews, and some of my work outcomes to this online resume. Importantly, this new button Vitae on my webpage, would be one of the proofs to my children that their father had not always been at home typing away at his keyboard writing his little stories and poems and worrying about the social implications of surveillance! It did, indeed, gladden my heart when a few nights ago I sat down with my daughter Eleni to read selections of this vitae and saw how very much, the new page meant to her! Especially, of course, the most generous thoughts from some of my dearest friends. I keep their longer messages in the ‘perfumed alabaster jar’ with other precious documents for my children to read in full one day.

I am sharing one of these ‘letters of commendation’ here because I promised the sender, as per his request, that I would share it uncut and unedited despite my protestations that it was much too generous. But Jason insisted and so I am complying because I do love him as much as he does love me. Above all, what characterizes it, as indeed the other messages I received during this time of my ‘second testing’ [the ‘first’ was the aftermath of my leaving the ministry], was the compassionate love of friendship. I have been blessed that Jason and all of my small community of friends possess this gift in common, and practise it in their daily lives and workplaces. They have overlooked, too, my many failings to instead focus on my few positives, to cast their light on those things which show me at my best. Isn’t this the greatest gift we can give to our friends, to keep on encouraging them nearer to their potential, to urge them to keep moving forward. To keep loving each other despite our flaws and fractures. Permit for me to now tell you something of my two treasure boxes! It will help to put this reflection into better perspective.

I have two plastic boxes in the storeroom beneath our staircase. They serve as an enduring reminder not only as to the vagaries of life, but also to the complexities of the human condition. The contents of these boxes, which I will shortly reveal to you, lift me up when I am down and breathe renewed hope into my spirit, and alternatively when I feel I need a strong dose of humility they quickly knock me down to the floor. This has reminded me of a deliciously relevant story. It is said, a young nun had reached such heights of spirituality [literally] that often she would rise up as if in flight above her religious sisters. Her fame reached a discerning and ascetic bishop who was asked to visit her priory, that he too, might be amazed by this young nun who was impressing all about her with her piety and spiritual exercises. The bishop arrives and sure enough during the service the young nun begins to levitate. All expected the renowned bishop to exclaim with wonder and offer his respects and admiration to the young nun. The old wise bishop, knowing much better, walked towards the young nun, paused for a moment looking up in dismay, “Goodness me, Sister, what big feet you have!”. With that, the young nun quickly fell to the ground, and with a large thud to boot. I don’t think I need to explain the moral of the story.

And so in one of the two boxes I keep all my beautiful letters, correspondence which encourages me, and inspires my heart when I am battling melancholia or have been hurt. This correspondence lifts me up, comforts my spirit, and reminds me I might have been of some small worth to others. In the other box I keep all of the ‘terrible’ correspondence, those letters and messages and emails which I have received that have been hurtful, and in some instances extremely painful. Rejections from publishers and editors, unexpected letters from people I loved who did not feel the same way about me, cutting emails, even a gift or two with ‘return to sender’. There are letters in this second box, I must confess remain unopened, even after many years. I pray over them for my own peace of heart. The purpose of this box you might have already guessed. When at times I might feel too much like that “flying nun” I hurry to this box. And I, too, hit the ground fast. Both boxes in their broader amplification are vital to me. I would not be who I am today with either one or the other any the lighter.

So thank you Jason, a dear friend during storms and sunshine, for such a sensitive, affectionate, and loving note, which will be put in the good box of my ‘perfumed alabaster jar’. Your words so beautifully put together, reveal as have the words of all my other dear friends, the loveliness of your own tender-hearted soul. I kept my promise to upload all of your letter and this despite my strong reservations, because this is what friends are supposed to do, best they can, keep their word one to the other.

“Knowing Michael has taught me that the world can be ‘unjust’. If the world were ‘just’, Michael’s journals, blogs and poetry would elbow their way onto the shelves of beloved bookstores and libraries everywhere, sitting amongst the tomes of classics which draw us in, change us and shepherd us on our way, renewed. Michael’s word craft posits you with the precision of a Johnny Peard bomb. “I submit the following as evidence, your Honour”. ‘Mother to my right adjusting our old grandfather clock’. “Yes, Counsellor, I hear for whom that Grandfather clock (bell) tolls, too”. Every visit with Michael is a journey through lightness, darkness and back to the light. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Angels and demons gather around each time we speak easily, knowingly, passionately on topics ranging from rugby league, classic film, the teachings of earnestness and sacrifice by deep blue collar parents, empathy, simpatico, to places and faces from the not-so-long to the very-long-ago, all the while name dropping: The Jets, Bunnies and Eels, reminiscing Frank Hyde, the doyenne of league broadcasters, The Reno Café, Paul the Apostle, Damiel, Getz, Clapton, McQueen, Keating, Geldof, Bocelli, Greenidge and Haynes – ‘Gods who opened for the team of Gods’, memories dotted along McCarthy’s The Road. We have lived somewhat shared experiences, though at different times and places, a parallel brotherhood. From the lecture theatres of Wollongong University to the Thai Burma Border refugee camps and study centres with classrooms which had no walls but still the relentless light and spirit flooded in. Some final insights, advice and takeaways to the readers of this vitae in knowing Michael: (1) When visiting, you cannot go wrong with a bottle of red with a spiritual logo rather than an ostentatious winery name; (2) “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you” (John 14:27); and (3) be prepared for the paradoxical tender bear hug upon greeting and goodbye. To know Michael is to have been ‘embraced tenderly’. Dr Jason Sargent, fellow journeyman, 2020.”