The Seedbed Daily Text » Blog Archive » KINGDOM FRIENDSHIPS.
One of the best descriptions of friendship I’ve ever read. Below is a quote from the must-read article linked above:
However, not all whom we love should be received into friendship, for not all are suitable for it. Your friend is the companion of your soul, whose spirit is united and joined to yours, and, yes, you wish to be mingled such two are blended into one; you entrust to your friend as to another self, hiding nothing, and from whom you fear nothing.
Certainly, then, you should first choose someone whom you judge apt for this; then you test or try him or her to make sure, and finally you admit the person to friendship. For once friendship is commenced, it should be ever stable, in a sense mirroring eternity, always preserving your loving affection for each other.
We are not to be like children, changing our friendships upon every transient whim. For there is no one more detestable than the one who hurts a friend, and nothing is a greater spiritual torment than desertion from a friend, or an attack from a friend. So a friend must be chosen with all studiousness, and tested with the greatest caution.
But once admitted, however, your friend should be so tolerated, so borne with, so deferred to that, so long as they don’t retreat irrevocably from standard human norms, they are yours, and you are theirs, both in body and in spirit, such that there is no division in your spirits, affections, wills, or purposes. We distinguish, therefore, four rungs by which one ascends to the perfection of friendship: The first is choosing, the second testing, the third admission, and the fourth—in things both divine and human, with all charity and benevolence—completely harmonious unity.
—Aelred of Rievaulx (1110-1167)
Spiritual Friendship
