Choice: the heart of Friendship.

            A faithful friend is an elixir of life,

a sturdy shelter and a treasure.

We all know from our experience that one of the great blessings in life is friendship. We value our friends deeply. We are very aware that our lives would be the poorer without them.

            One of the books of the Old Testament, from which we don’t often read, the Book of Sirach, has some very striking things to say about friendship. It was written about one hundred and eighty years before the birth of Jesus. It is clearly written by someone who knew the value of friendship in his own life. At one point, the author says the following about friendship: ‘a faithful friend is a sturdy shelter: whoever has found one has found a treasure. There is nothing so precious as a faithful friend, and no scales can measure their excellence. A faithful friend is an elixir of life; and those who fear the Lord will find one’. The image of a faithful friend as a sturdy shelter, as a treasure, rings true to all our experience.

            It is difficult to say how or why friendships happen. There was a very well known book written by Norman Vincent Peale, ‘How to make friends and influence people’. However, there is only so much any of us can do to make a friendship happen, because, as we know, a friendship has to be mutual. I may want to be someone’s friend, but unless that person wants to be my friend, the friendship won’t come to pass. Friendships happen when two people chose each other as friends. If I chose someone as a friend, I need that person to chose me as their friend for the friendship to come to pass.

            Choice is at the heart of friendship, the choice of two people for each other. One of the more painful experiences of life is when the choice I make to befriend someone is not reciprocated by that person.

-MMM-