Tag Archives: friendship

May 1st: Growth after a period of cold

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File:Lily-of-the-valley.jpg

The month of May is called Bealtaine  in Ireland, after the ancient Celtic feast that was celebrated on May 1st. It marks the midpoint in the progress of the sun  between the spring equinox and the summer solstice, and announced the beginning of Summer. Hard to believe this year. Here in France it is the custom today to give as a gift the traditional flower for the first of May -  the  muguet, or lily of the valley.  This flower is a symbol of springtime and of beauty, used frequently in bridal bouquets,  and has traditionally been associated with the return of happiness after a period of darkness.   And yet this is despite the fact that its stalk, flowers, and berries are all extremely poisonous. A strange mix, but one that we find elsewhere in our lives. Often the places of greatest growth and energy, the places we learn most and reflect most upon,  are the places where we have been most hurt.  And frequently we find most freedom when we move from the places where we have been stuck, or the things that we feared most, without them being able to poison us any more.

Perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses, who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us. So you must not be frightened…..if a sadness rises up before you larger than any you have ever seen; if a restiveness, like light and cloud-shadows, passes over your hands and over all you do. You must think that something is happening with you, that life has not forgotten you, that it holds you in its hand; it will not let you fall. . . .

Rilke

Photo: Lily-of-the-valley, Gordon E. Robertson

A love that does not have conditions

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We can develop a love that is steadfast and universal. We develop it not because we force ourselves to love so fully. Rather, we discover that loving unconditionally is the greatest source of joy, and that we are the loser for any hesitation or interruption in that love, such as “I would really love you if you would just do your share of the cooking, if you would just do this, if you would be like that.”

Whenever we hesitate like that, we lose. This helps me remember not to mortgage away any of my days by having a grudge or a grievance or making myself distant. That would simply cause a rupture in that steadfast, universal love that is so joyful.

Sylvia Boorstein

Friendships that support

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When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.

Henri Nouwen

Patience in relationships

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We need patience in relationships  to really grow and know another person, to grow into our own stories and really listen to the stories of another.  This allows a new story to emerge as the interweaving of two lives.  Calm patience, letting go of any forcing in the now,  as we allow something deeper to come in the future.

To learn to live with the unavoidability of the other is to learn to be patient. Such patience comes not just from our inability to have the other do our will; more profoundly, it arises with the love that the presence of the other can and does create in us. Our loves, like our bodies, signal our death. And such love -  if it is not to be fearful of its loss, a very difficult thing – must be patient. Moreover, patience sustains and strengthens love, for it opens to us the time we need to tell our own story with another’s story intertwined and to tell it together with that other. So told, the story in fact constitutes our love.

Hauerwas and Pinches, Christians Among the Virtues

When we do not have to prove anything

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Meditation practice is about dropping into a non-doing mode, where we do not have to be someone or achieve something. In this way it echoes the sense of rest found in close relationships – a place we can simply be ourselves, where we can be weak, without having to prove our worth or impress anyone:

Power and cleverness call forth admiration but also a certain separation, a sense of distance; we are reminded of who we are not, of what we cannot do. On the other hand, sharing weaknesses and needs calls us together into “oneness”. We welcome those who love us into our heart. In this communion, we discover the deepest part of our being: the need to be loved and to have someone who trusts and appreciates us and who cares least of all about our capacity to work or to be clever and interesting. When we discover we are loved in this way, the masks or barriers behind which we hide are dropped; new life flows. We no longer have to prove our worth; we are free to be ourselves. We find a new wholeness, a new inner unity.

Jean Vanier

Love and risk

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To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that  casket -  safe, dark, motionless, airless – it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.

C.S. Lewis, The Fours Loves