Real friends are forever

Honesty, for me, is the most important ingredient in friendship. If someone is a real friend, then he or she will want me to be completely truthful with him or her about all of my thoughts and feelings. Even if my thoughts and feelings disagree with theirs, when a friend loves me, he or she will embrace me in my entirety. Because when there is a friendship, many abstractions between the heart and mind are understood among people that fall short of definition. Friends do not hold one another to specifics of the words spoken, nor to dress sizes, or even skin color.

Talkin bout unconditional love here, where we don't say "if this" or "when that", because unconditional love is limitless. I imagine there was much of it when the first settlers came over here on the Mayflower. Because they were all in one accord. And even if we read in the book of Acts in the Bible, which is an account of what the Jesus' disciples did after He ascended. They spread the good news which he gave "and many were added to their number daily; those that were being saved".*

*Acts chapter 2, verse 47

Friends and cunning (continued)

OK, in my last blog I said that I would be continuing on the topic of 'Friends and cunning'. Some of you may have hoped I would continue the story of my friendship with the young girl I spoke of, Susan. Actually, we stayed friends right up until our college years, but we grew very far apart in terms of our goals and lifestyle choices.
But my point in introducing you to Susan was that, Sometimes even the best of friends might say things or suggest things that will be detrimental to us if we take them too seriously. As I review what I shared about Susan and her mother, I'm thinking, "I wish I had had more insight into what she must have been going through". As kids, all we think about is "me-me-me" isn't it?
Anyways, if a close friend or even a relative suggests something that really and truly doesn't sit right with you, get help. Try to find someone objective to discuss your concerns with.
In conclusion, your best friend may not, and probably is not right all the time. In fact, I know that even my parents, out of nothing but their love for me, told me I was right at times when they might have been wiser if they had tried to get me to consider the possibility that I was wrong, and visa versa.
Then, may I just add that, knowing this, understand that if you want to be the best friend you can be, be honest.

Friends and cunning

When I was in the sixth grade, I was best friends with a little girl named Susan. As often happens with kids that age, her mother met my mom and dad, and they hit it off. It was great! Her mom really liked my parents a lot, and Susan and her sister Lisa became good friends with me.

However, after a number of months, things became more difficult. You see, Susan's mother was in the middle of a painful divorce. The fact that my parents were happily married, and Nancy was being rejected by the man she had married (not sure who rejected who, I was only a child 10 years old), was one of the most damaging forces ever in the lives of my parents and myself. You see, the more painful Nancy's divorce became, the more tempting it was for her to compare herself to my mother.

Simultaneously, my little friend Susan, in her bitterness that she was losing her dad while I still had mine, became very very envious. So then, one night when Susan slept over my house, she began to say awful things to me. This girl, who I considered my very best friend, was very casually saying to me that "everybody hated me". Doesn't every child just dread hearing such words? She added too that the young boy who I thought was the cutest in the class actually liked her, and that they frequently found themselves staring at each other in class. Just imagine how much all of this hurt!

Now, let's go back to the topic of this blog. We are discussing cunning. Can you see how Susan's envy got the better of her? She was struggling with some hard issues for a girl of her age and was comparing her lifestyle to the security and worry-free childhood I was experiencing. Though we started out "bosom buddies", at this point our friendship had clearly changed. Susan may still have admired me, but she no longer sincerely enjoyed spending time with me. She looked at me, and I was an ugly reminder that she was losing her father.

When a close friend begins to behave in a way that does not line up with your standards for friendship, the warning flag should go up. Right then and there, when Susan was saying cruel things to me, I needed to be brave enough to recognize that she could no longer be trusted in the way that I wanted to trust her.

Trust

If we refuse to put some chips on the table, then how can we participate in the game? I'm not a gambler, but I'm using this example to say, in order to turn someone into a friend, we have to be willing to put ourselves in a position in which we risk being hurt.
I'm not saying be foolhardy, I'm not saying risk a great deal all the time. When we put ourselves in a vulnerable position, it should be under the auspices of a calculated risk. When making a friend,  we should normally have a 'hunch' that this person is similar to us, that what we have to offer this person is something he or she will value, and will cherish us for sharing.
But this is only one part of a calculated risk. The other side of it is; we also need to trust ourselves. It is very very important,  that in thinking about opening up to someone and giving of ourselves, we have faith in our own resilience. If we can't be confident in anything else when we meet someone we wish to befriend, it is critical that we know that, should something go wrong, and the friendship cannot mature properly, we are strong enough to get beyond the hurt.
Moving from acquaintance to friendship with someone  is one of the most exciting things about being alive! I would say it is what makes life worth living. But just some things to remember: Are you being realistic? Are you taking a calculated risk, in which you have sized up what you know about the reliability of the person you want to reach out to? Are you also being realistic about how you will feel if disappointment with this person is down the road? If you are at least somewhat sure that you can answer 'Yes' to these two questions, then you are ready for the Position of Friend!

Managing loyalties

Have you ever been in a situation in which an action that may benefit your relationship with your significant other, at the same time may break the heart of a close relative? Then there are situations, perhaps not quite so severe, but the same factors come into play.  A dear friend may see you being friendly with someone that he or she doesn't care for. Or he or she may have actually decided that they don't care for this person because they were surprised to see you being friendly to them!
What creates a conflict in loyalties is when: friend #1 has made an assumption that "If you truly loved me, you would not have shared a part of yourself that you shared with me, with friend #2."
I almost have to laugh when I think about it, because this is a classic scenario which causes such a great deal of conflict among relationships! I hate to say this, but to clarify what we're talking about here: friend #1 is being unfairly possessive. Often times he or she is fully aware of it too! There are many many times, when someone, even an employer... can wield their weight and say to an employee, "If you were sincere about the goals of this company, you will stay away from people such as (whoever you have befriended)."
Well, whether it's a close friend, or a family member, or even an employer, let me declare straight up: anyone who places this kind of pressure on someone who cares for them is being unfair and unjust. In my opinion, pressure of this nature needs to be resisted and ignored. The way I look at it, as one American patriot said, "Give me liberty or give me death!"*
Friend, let me encourage you, you do what your heart is telling you. Friend #1 will soon come to, not only respect you for your independence, but understand that he or she has no right to take advantage and try to control people in this way.

Patrick Henry: Give me liberty or give me death speech

*Patrick Henry

Real friends

What value does the average person place on friendship? How do we define the average friendship? Friendship has come to mean many many different things. When we think of online friendships, people can have thousands of friends. But real friends? We know real friendships because we can sense a common bond with the person and ourselves, a special knowing that we are special to them and they are special to us. Mostly, this kind of knowing is a result of shared experiences. Someone may behave in a way that many people consider strange. But when a real friend comes on the scene, he or she has seen us in many other settings. He or she has had a chance to size up our value system. Therefore, one person can calm a storm. Many people may be thinking that someone's action is strange. Yet one person can come on the scene who understands the virtue behind this person's reasoning, and offer the person favor.
My mother shared a verse from a Shakespeare sonnet with me that I find valuable and helpful when thinking about my friends: "Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove"*. I encourage you to really think about this little verse. Because if someone is expecting you to jump through hoops, or you will lose their friendship, is this person really your friend? If you are losing sleep because you are worried that someone you love will find out something about you that you don't want them to know, is a person who will leave you on the basis of (whatever it is you're hiding) really worthy of your love?
Who are the people who are worthy of your love? Because if you have five thousand friends or followers, I'll bet even out of a number like that, your real friends can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Cherish them.

*Shakespeare Sonnet 116

Responsibility and Friendship

This one I was inspired to write about because of watching my Dad in action. He is now, very sadly a widower for a month. But what a survivor! Unbelievable!
A tragedy has happened,  and what is his first thought? Yes, he's lonely and the house feels empty without my mother.
But my Dad's professional training was in architecture. His primary concern is, what are the things I need to do to prevent my life from caving in? The answer: He needs to take proper care of himself. Yes, he must eat and take his meds. He has, in addition to this, kept the house clean, mowed the lawn and done other maintenance on the yard.
But you know what he's needing to do? Something that takes quite a bit of courage. He is needing to form new relationships, and develop meaning in relationships that before my mother's death he could afford to keep at bay.
Do you have any idea how much determination this takes? How much respect he has for the life God put in him? I know many many people who, if faced with a challenge as great as this, would throw in the towel and say "Forget it!".
But look, he knows I need him. He also loves his grandchildren (my niece and nephew), and be wants to see them grow up.
I guess what I'm trying to say is, in order to form friendships, you really have to first be a good friend to yourself. It's the thing that helps people decide that you are normal.

A little note for clarification

Here are the two URLs where I've previously been blogging about different aspects of friendship:

In the Position of Friend (December 2012-May 2013)

http://returningtowonder.blogspot.com/

In the Position of Friend (November 2012-December 2012)
http://soulsoldreturns.blogspot.com/

Dropbox - The_Winans_-_Its_Time.mp3

Dealing with an offense-- a few more possibilities

Just so that we can exhaust the options available to us when handling someone who has hurt or offended us, here are a few more options:

Many people find that giving the "hurter" what is known as the silent treatment, works very well as a way of letting someone know that we have been hurt. I've heard good things about this technique. Personally though, I can't vouch for it because I find it impossible to stay silent. As soon as the person catches on that indeed, I am giving them the silent treatment,  they pry my mouth open in moments.  So I can't say I've had much success with this.

My own tendency is to get fiesty with the person who has caused me hurt. There are observations I've made about my friends, and when someone has upset or angered me, I draw from my knowledge, and figure out how it relates to what I've noticed about the person. I then share what I hope are good insights with him or her with the hope that after some thought, they will make better choices.

But we are here to discuss FRIENDSHIP. And although all these methods may work, we want, together to come up with an approach where we can improve our relationship with one who has upset us, and draw him or her into a better quality friendship.

Here is one striking lesson I learned from listening to young teenagers speak on a call-in Christian radio show. Now this took place over ten years ago. But it was a call-in radio show for teenagers, and one night the question was, "What do you do when you are upset about something?" Do you know, many of the kids who called in said "I don't do anything."? "I do nothing". "I walk into my room and just sit quietly". I imagine what they did was just try to relax and wait until they felt better about the upset. Till they could think clearly about what the best way to handle it would be.

See, when we are hurting over something someone has said or done, maybe we need to ask within ourselves-- am I correct in the way I'm reacting to this? Are my expectations of the one who hurt me realistic? When we really think about it, placing expectations on others will often lead to hurt and disappointment. What we should seek to do is consider the thought that realationships are different, whether they're close as husband and wife, or strained as boss and employee. All of us have come from different backgrounds, had different experiences, and learned the lessons of life in a different manner. Therefore, when something someone does shocks or disappoints us, it is a signal that we need to widen what we see as our field of common understanding. We may have assumed that someone was more similar to us than they turned out to be. But similarity is not a prerequisite for a good friendship.

Depeche Mode: People Are

Choosing friendship

I want to continue on the topic of needing forgiveness,  needing to be asked for forgiveness, and some interesting grounds along these lines.

Today was a little rough for me, and how do I deal with someone who is giving me pain or has just inflicted pain on me? (limiting this discussion to emotional pain) A popular way of handling it is to act like a Superman/Superwoman. "Oh thank you for that! That was wonderful! Don't even in your wildest dreams think you hurt me!" LMAO. Look, this is not realistic. When we try to indicate this to someone when in reality it hurt like hell,  you know what we're doing? We're lying!

On the other hand, if we are honest and let someone know that their words or actions injured us, it shows that we value our integrity and the integrity of the friendship.We need to choose our words carefully though. We want to avoid making the person defensive.

Another popular practice... one that I have not believed in and mostly avoid because it is immoral, is getting even. I really despise actions of this kind. When people avoid letting me know that I have hurt them or am hurting them, and then, after behaving like they're crazy about me, I find out that they have done something sneaky. It makes me ask, what kind of relationship do I have with this person anyway?

Let's all of us together, you guys who are reading, and myself included,  brainstorm on about how to manage relationships and situations when someone has been insensitive. We will continue on this topic when I have more answers.  The good thing now is that we have established that feeling injured by someone is an awkward place to be.

On making amends

It is very difficult for many people to ask forgiveness. I find it almost impossible to admit that I said or did something wrong, or to admit that I handled a situation badly. My knee-jerk reaction is to absolutely defend what I did. In fact, the harder and faster I run to defend something I did, this can be a tell-tale sign that my conscience is bugging me and that deep inside I realize I was wrong.
A really horrible thing is that many years after a particular wrongdoing, I see that I may have significantly damaged someone through my ill words. In cases like this, it is often not only impossible to find the victims of my wrongdoing, but even those that I can track down, how do I bring up the ugliness of what I did?

You see there is a flip side of the coin: Admitting that an injury occurred, that there is something here that needs to be forgiven is just as difficult. Once the perpetrator of the wrong has become aware of it and desires to clear the air, a really sensitive part of it is that the injured party,  before saying "I forgive you", is having to admit, "Yes, you really hurt me, there is something here that needs forgiveness."

Pride is such a treacherous thing! Because just as hard as it is to overcome the desire to defend a wrong committed, it can be equally hard to admit to someone that they had the power to hurt you.

Time for a cool change

I'm thinking of you guys, those who read my material so far (just getting started), and let me tell you, I'm excited!
As my fingers typed out words of truth to the world today, something returned to me. I sensed the starvation in the world for some honesty and sincerity. And my in-valid state was granted some Validity. And I am hoping that those special ones who benefited from what I wrote down earlier, can now feel grateful that you mattered to me in a real way.

Dropbox - CoolChange.mp3

If you made it here, you are already a friend

If I were going to admire and respect someone to the point where I would desire to draw them in to be my friend, one quality comes to mind right away that would make him or her attractive to me. He or she would have to have a mind of their own-- free from and unaffected by popular opinion, or anyone's opinion outside of their own. To be friends with me, being that I am a highly unusual person, one with a relatively severe physical disability, and on top of this, a lifestyle that people can only cringe when they even think of it... living in a nursing home, if you are not an independent thinker, you will already have left this URL and moved onto another.
And so, let me tell you, if you are still with me, I appreciate very much that you made it this far! Very very much. Some of you may have been In the Position of Friend with me for a long time,  perhaps even dating back to My Sad Situation. If you have, then you are a person who doesn't want to be lied to. You are a person who wants more than another sales pitch. You want more than yet another person who is looking for an email address from you or any other information.
Sincere friendship has no price, because it's priceless. And I am blessed that my mother told me all my life that she wanted a daughter who would be her friend. She raised me to be brutally honest. Too much. But it is a privilege to have been strengthened by her in the importance of friendship.

Getting together-staying together

You wake up and suddenly you're in love... think that's a lyric from a movie, but I can't remember which one. But no, I just thought it would sound like a good reason for creating a new blog.
My true reason for starting a new blog is, I was looking for an animation which I had put with one of my postings, and I realized that the number of posts was virtually endless. I am here working with my little Android phone, and there was no way I could find what I was looking for in a stack of blogs like that!
This piece of writing here is simply meant to announce my new blog: Always Your Friend. But I want to devote my first official post on this new web address to explaining what kind of friend I am seeking to be, and what I see as the qualities of a good friend. Shalom.