Here are three of my own observations about friendship:
My best friend is the person who comes into my life to comfort me at a
time when everybody else is rushing out in disgust.
My best friend gathers me into his heart like a day's harvest. The
wheat lodges there, and the chaff floats away and is forgotten.
There's a hole in my soul. Unless I fill it with friends, the wind
blows in and life is very chilly.
Three articles about friendship:
"Real friendship looks at the heart, not just the "packaging." Genuine
friendship loves for love's sake, not just for what it can get in
return. True friendship is both challenging and exciting. It risks, it
overlooks faults, and it loves unconditionally, but it also involves
being truthful, even though it may hurt."
All About God: True Friendship
http://www.allaboutgod.com/True-Friendship.htm
"There are many forms of friendship. There is friendship based solely
on pleasure, which keeps your head in the clouds, but it is neither
anchor nor buffer when hurricane winds blow. Friendships based solely
on convenience and utility keep your feet on the ground, but have no
room for laughter, tears, magic, or even silence. But what glory, what
wonder, a third form of friendship affords! This friendship is rooted
in souls that truly love all that is real and true and good and
beautiful. It walks firmly on the foundation of enduring faithfulness,
but not a faithfulness that tolerates falsehood. It lifts the spirits
in whirlwinds of joy, but still manages to keep the head clear. True
friends point out with the light of reason one another?s vices, and
with patience and fortitude, assist one another in combating those
vices. True friends build into one another shining rays of virtue that
are continually honed in their mutual striving for greater goodness.
They learn to love one another, seeing one another through trials,
standing together in storms, and sitting through the late watches of
the night. True friends will always protect each other from
injustices, betrayals, and all other forms of harm. When the world
turns against you, these friendships simply will not let you sink."
You Can't Sink: On Friendship, by Lisa Otten
http://www.ashbrook.org/publicat/respub/v12n1/otten2.html
"Each lifetime is [like]... a jigsaw puzzle. For some there are more
pieces. For others the puzzle is more difficult to assemble. Some seem
to be born with a nearly completed puzzle. And so it goes. Souls going
this way and that, trying to assemble the myriad parts.But know this.
No one has within themselves all the pieces to their puzzle...
Everyone carries with them at least one and probably many pieces to
someone else's puzzle. Sometimes they know it. Sometimes they don't...
Do you have a close friend with whom to 'sit alone together'? Who
draws you and who not? Who might be the puzzle piece you need?"
First Parish Unitarian Universalist: One is Silver, the Other Gold
http://fpuucanton.home.att.net/s042901.htm
Some insightful lyrics from one of my favorite songs. "Love Me When
I'm Gone," as performed by Third Door Down:
"So hold me when I'm here
Right me when I'm wrong
Hold me when I'm scared
And love me when I'm gone
Everything I am
And everything in me
Wants to be the one
You wanted me to be
I'll never let you down
Even if I could
I'd give up everything
If only for your good
So hold me when I'm here
Right me when I'm wrong
You can hold me when I'm scared
You won't always be there
So love me when I'm gone"
Search terms used:
"true friendship"
"a friend is"
"genuine friendship"
"real friends"
"definition of friendship"
Thank you for the question, Sarge. And thanks for being my friend.
Best wishes always,
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