I sit today at Big Bear Lake, CA. Being here was not on my travel agenda and that doesn’t surprise me. What impacts me most about being here, and the places I have been over the past few weeks, is the impact and value of friendship. Friendship stands apart from family, partners and lovers by a lessening of the demand to live certain ways and by an element of distance that inherently supports individuality. In friendship, we choose to be close. We are impelled to regard the other without possessiveness or ownership. Friendship asks that we give and receive, that we open our heart and by so doing, we discover ourselves.
As a person who holds individuality and independence in exceptionally high regard, my current awareness of how my very identity is impressed by relationship with others causes me to pause. I am realizing that identity is not something that can be created in isolation as its nature suggests relationship to something - otherwise, how do we define it? It has only been recently that I have discovered that I am most myself when I am interacting with others. I cherish the opportunity to share and express emotions, to check beliefs and opinions against those of my friends, to know and be known, to give and receive – to love. I believe these to be common desires of all people.
When I moved into my RV, I loaned many of my things to friends. I find a treasured satisfaction in knowing that those articles that I appreciated, utilized functionally, and that helped form my identity are creating community in the sense of community ownership. Taking this idea further, I like to tell everyone that I now look at every beach, every mountain and every gorgeous landscape as my home. Appreciating material things in this sense has helped foster a greater sense of community responsibility and connectedness within me. It has become easier for me to befriend another dog owner at the beach or a hiker along my path. It has nourished my desire to see the divine in everyone and to be willing to ask a stranger: Who are you? Will you tell me something about yourself? It has assisted me to develop friendships with people who I never imagined I would want to share myself with. Sometimes those friendships are momentary and sometimes they are life-long. Either way, they mould and form me. Each friendship is a world, a playground in which I live and engage and from which I take experiences, memories and learning.
Friend: A person attached to another with affection and personal regard. A person who is on good terms with another. A person who is not hostile. A person who gives assistance, a supporter.
Can you imagine a world where we made friendship a priority? Where we treated everyone with the respect and kindness with which we encircle those we have defined as friends? Can you imagine the value of friendship to the soul of human life? Can you imagine that your simple friendly engagement with someone relatively unknown to you may have lasting impression and help us to be a world of related people instead of enemies? If you can imagine, the next step is action.
In this time of Thanksgiving, I am grateful to those that I currently share friendship with. I love and thank you for the blessing you bring to my life. And to those I have yet to meet, I look forward to being friends.
Namastè
As a person who holds individuality and independence in exceptionally high regard, my current awareness of how my very identity is impressed by relationship with others causes me to pause. I am realizing that identity is not something that can be created in isolation as its nature suggests relationship to something - otherwise, how do we define it? It has only been recently that I have discovered that I am most myself when I am interacting with others. I cherish the opportunity to share and express emotions, to check beliefs and opinions against those of my friends, to know and be known, to give and receive – to love. I believe these to be common desires of all people.
When I moved into my RV, I loaned many of my things to friends. I find a treasured satisfaction in knowing that those articles that I appreciated, utilized functionally, and that helped form my identity are creating community in the sense of community ownership. Taking this idea further, I like to tell everyone that I now look at every beach, every mountain and every gorgeous landscape as my home. Appreciating material things in this sense has helped foster a greater sense of community responsibility and connectedness within me. It has become easier for me to befriend another dog owner at the beach or a hiker along my path. It has nourished my desire to see the divine in everyone and to be willing to ask a stranger: Who are you? Will you tell me something about yourself? It has assisted me to develop friendships with people who I never imagined I would want to share myself with. Sometimes those friendships are momentary and sometimes they are life-long. Either way, they mould and form me. Each friendship is a world, a playground in which I live and engage and from which I take experiences, memories and learning.
Friend: A person attached to another with affection and personal regard. A person who is on good terms with another. A person who is not hostile. A person who gives assistance, a supporter.
Can you imagine a world where we made friendship a priority? Where we treated everyone with the respect and kindness with which we encircle those we have defined as friends? Can you imagine the value of friendship to the soul of human life? Can you imagine that your simple friendly engagement with someone relatively unknown to you may have lasting impression and help us to be a world of related people instead of enemies? If you can imagine, the next step is action.
In this time of Thanksgiving, I am grateful to those that I currently share friendship with. I love and thank you for the blessing you bring to my life. And to those I have yet to meet, I look forward to being friends.
Namastè
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