Day 340…Pyramid or coalition

Whether you are fortunate enough to find yourself in a coalition or you are in the suffocating surrounding of a pyramid, here is something that will help you:

Identify your true friendships.

So, today two gifts.

First, an introduction to Henri J.M. Nouwen. You have to spend some time with this wonderful person, who is one of my most cherished ‘spiritual guides.’

Second, a page out of one the most powerful and profound books I have ever read, “The Inner Voice of Love,” by Nouwen:

Friendship has been a source of great pain for you. You desired it so much that you often lost yourself in the search for a true friend. Many times you became desperate when a friendship you hoped for didn’t materialize, or when a friendship begun with great expectations did not last. Many of your friendships grew from your need for affection, affirmation, and emotional support. But now you must seek friends to whom you can relate from your center, from the place where you know that you are deeply loved. Friendship becomes more and more possible when you accept yourself as deeply loved. Then you can be with others in a non-possessive way. Real friends find their inner correspondence where both know the love of God. There spirit speaks to spirit and heart to heart. True friendships are lasting because true love is eternal. A friendship in which heart speaks to heart is a gift from God, and no gift that comes from God is temporary or occasional. All that comes from God participates in God’s eternal life. Love between people, when given by God, is stronger than death. In this sense, true friendships continue beyond the boundary of death. When you have loved deeply, that love can grow even stronger after the death of the person you love. That is the core message of Jesus. When Jesus died, the disciples’ friendship with him did not diminish. On the contrary, it grew. This is what the sending of the Spirit was all about. The Spirit of Jesus made Jesus’ friendship with his disciples everlasting, stronger and more intimate than before his death. That is what Paul experienced when he said, “It is no longer I, but Christ living in me” (Galatians 2:20). You have to trust that every true friendship has no end, that a communion of saints exists among all those, living and dead, who have truly loved God and one another. You know from experience how real this is. Those you have loved deeply and who have died live on in you, not just as memories but as real presences. Dare to love and to be a real friend. The love you give and receive is a reality that will lead you closer and closer to God as well as to those whom God has given you to love.

Let me not expect more from my friends and family. Let me be a better friend and better family member.

Thank you, Sister Diana, for introducing me to “Henri” – and thank you for passing on the connection.

Let us examine our friendships and build a coalition of love in our personal lives.

TOGETHER WE TRANSFORM

Jim

1COR13:13