by tashmcgill | Jun 18, 2014 | Culture & Ideas, Friendship
There’s a story that tells of two friends walking through the desert.
During one particularly difficult part of their journey they had an argument, and one friend slapped the other in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, but without saying anything, wrote in the sand:
“TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SLAPPED ME IN THE FACE.”
They kept on walking until they found an oasis, where they decided to take a rest and go for a swim. The one who had been slapped got stuck in the mire and started drowning, but the friend saved him. After he recovered from the near drowning, he wrote on a stone:
“TODAY MY BEST FRIEND SAVED MY LIFE.”
The friend who had slapped and saved his best friend asked him, “After I hurt you, you wrote in the sand and now, you write on a stone, why?” (more…)
by tashmcgill | Dec 20, 2013 | Friendship
We cannot tell the exact moment a friendship is formed; as in filling a vessel drop by drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindnesses, there is at last one that makes the heart run over.
Companion
My phone buzzes in the middle of the night, a repetitive staccato. Someone’s mind is wrestling and restless with contention, causing sleeplessness. No wonder, as I wake from my slumber containing a dream of you anyway, that my eyes and hands are flickering open reaching for contact before I’m even aware. I know the sound of your thoughts on the black sky and the moonlight wakes me before they reach me.
What is this strange entanglement of thoughts and presence that wraps around me? You reach deep into my mind and extract all sorts of secrets and goodness. You shine light into spaces I had kept away and make them appear beautiful for your knowing them, and I in turn, have a knowing of you that makes the heart full, the drop of running-over has landed on the parched soil of the soul. I am connected with all the intangible parts of me.
Companion is the word that stretches into my memory. A friend who is frequently in the company of another, a traveller on the journey who accompanies you. The ‘other’ of another.
Thomas Merton said ‘The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them. Love is our true destiny. We do not find the meaning of life by ourselves alone – we find it with another.
On Friendship
Kahlil Gibran
Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.
When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the “nay” in your own mind, nor do you withhold the “ay.”
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.
And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
by tashmcgill | Dec 7, 2013 | Culture & Ideas, Friendship
Bruce and I met when he was in his late 50s, and I was a 17 year old school girl. He was a worldly musician, I was dreaming of serving God in youth ministry. How did we become friends? Well, because we chose to and we lived better for it. He wasn’t a Christian, although we talked about spirituality and philosophy endlessly. He never held my faith against me, in fact – as the years went on, he seemed more intrigued by it.
I thought he was intelligent enough to ask questions if he wanted, and I was intelligent enough not to give answers where they were unnecessary. We talked about people, sexuality, growing up, learning from your mistakes, trying to find your way in life and we talked of writing. We always talked of writing. (more…)
by tashmcgill | Feb 7, 2013 | Culture & Ideas, Friendship
“Welcome to the age of self-management, it’s all on you from here.” It was said with a smile, but in a tone that makes the blood run cold. More truth held in the six words at the end of that sentence than I’d heard for quite some time. I was being given a choice about how to respond.
The infallible truth is, my life is a direct result of my choices and actions. Both poor and good choices construct a set of circumstances that I, and I alone, must take responsibility for. Regardless of how we interact with other individuals and how their choices may impact on us, our choices to respond to those circumstances lands the responsibility firmly in our own hands. Your life isn’t what happens to you, it’s how you respond. (more…)
by tashmcgill | Nov 11, 2008 | Culture & Ideas, Friendship
Conversations With A Friend
says He: yes, I do love you.
says I: why, why do you love me?
says He (pausing): I love you because you can talk. About anything, and it makes sense. (laughing). And because you’re generous.
says I: (laughing) with my heart or with my wallet?
says He: (laughing more) with your… everything about you.
Chuckling under our breath, the mid-afternoon sun into our coffee cups. I paused, walked with you to cross the road and smelt like your cigarette smoke for the rest of the day.
And I felt known.
Conversations By Mail
True romance is not just the notion of love but the gasp and the shudder of all manner of emotions in exquisite moments, captured and tasted as if in concentrate. Thus, poems of the deep heart, written by hand, sent by mail and arriving into my hand on a crisp new summer night exert everything that is good and beautiful about romance between friends.. the agony and ache of parting, the anticipation of reunion, the sorrow of distance, the joy of communicating.
There is but one poem, and it travels between us – always handwritten.
