There is peace and sometimes a proper challenging to be had in talking and taking time to speak with friends. Friendship is not all about the pursuit of happiness, but any interaction with friends seems to be a reflecting on life and the opportunity for some wisdom to be gathered.
There is something that is strangely civilised and human about being with friends who care and who take the time to understand and question what it is we are saying and what is really behind the words of concern or anger or anxiety about some issue or matter in life. In a virtual world of electronic acquaintances , flesh and blood friends matter. Friends can be about untangling the jumbled emotions or thoughts that have tied themselves into some Gordian knot of the heart or mind. It can be the process of a complicated matter made simple. Or conversely a simple matter that needs expansion or a belief that needs its ideas or its vocablury extended or its prejudice tested or confirmed. Time and patience and initiative and a space where one can really focus on understanding matters in friendship.
Friendships can exist in families.I hear stories of cousins who are the best of friends and even of siblings who look forward to one another company and are content as adults to go on holidays with one another. Families however can be a place of friendliness and safety. However friendships can be the place where the the pains or outrages of being part of a family can be undone and some healing can take place and listening and reflection without criticism can take place.
Words are powerful. Affirmation matters. Disagreement matters. Correction matters. Confirmation matters. Truth matters. Aristotle talks of different types of friends but he makes special mention of those friends who not only seek our good but see it as their duty to tell us the truth. 500 years before Aristotle, King Solomon the wise said that wounds from a friend can be trusted. Its not just a feel good experience or being on the receiving end of friendship that matters. It’s being a friend who values truth and has a pair of ears that are open and a mouth to keep quiet and when the time comes, to speak.
