Read an Excerpt
To have a deep friend is daring, creative, transformative, and humbling. It requires focus, dedication, self-giving, and two conscious people attending to the movement of love in the depth of their being. In other words it is a spiritual matter.
Casual friends are people we care about, enjoy and do things with. We may have many interests in common with such friends. This is true of deeper friendships, too, but in my experience, these friendships have another dimension. They ask us to develop our essence and to grow spiritually. That is something an ordinary friendship might not ask of us.
Based on mutual caring, connection to spirit and a necessity to grow in consciousness the love between friends is a different kind of love than we think of ordinarily. It has freedom in it. It comes and goes by laws of its own and has no guarantees. It requires loving awareness and presence. Above all it is a tender gift that we must live in order to realize.
This book is a collection of reflections culled from many years of dwelling in and caring about this subject. Words will ultimately fail, for deep, spiritual friendship is an experience that contains more than can be articulated. Yet I want to trust that these reflections will bring the reader to examine what it is to have and to be a true friend.
I hope the reader will feel this book to be an invitation, a kind of heart to heart conversation that invites us to be open, to consider matters of the most inward kind. I bring up qualities, activities, and attitudes that are helpful in cultivating a deep friendship. As I was writing I found that an afterthought would come to me. These thoughts are printed in italics to invite a slower pace and an encouragement to reverie. I hope you will mull things over and think about what you have read since your response is integral to this conversation.
I use the words God, Spirit, Love, Life, and Reality to point to the numinous Unknown in which we live and move and have our being. We know that no name can ultimately describe the Mystery at the heart of all that is. Yet we can have experiences through deep friendship in which we sense how we belong to that Mystery and therefore to everything. Please do not read this book straight through. Let there be time to consider what you would like to add or take exception to. Making space for reflection is often forgotten in our fast-paced society. Let’s reclaim the leisure to respond from reverie rather than from rushing.
A loving spiritual connection between people is full of nurturing and waiting. It has to take place over time. It is in duration that trust comes into being. As we witness one another’s inner beauty and essence we are giving and receiving the greatest of gifts. I hope that in reading this book you will find some useful ideas. I hope you will feel encouraged to draw closer to the ground of your own being and to the growth of your spirit. I hope you might give this book to a special person who is, or might be trusted to be, a true companion on the way.
We are embedded in Mystery of Love. I believe we are asked to develop deep friendships not only for our own sakes but also for the sake of one another and for the sake of Love itself. Together we can attend to the longing that dwells at the core in each and every one of us and so become more of who we essentially are ...parts of Love itself.
