Spiritual Friendship

I've been making an effort lately to participate more in the on-line Christian blogger community as community. So The Pocket Scroll's current piece on Spiritual Friendship drew my attention. (That's part 3 in a series; see also part 1 here and part 2 here.)

Friendship is closely related to fellowship, and a topic that is deserving of our attention.

Friendship is from the beginning a cease-fire zone for life's battles, a peaceful place where a meaningful connection can grow. In some ways, friendship is a mutual non-judgment pact: a friend does not seek to find fault in their friends, and is slow to believe the worst of them. A friend does not expect to control the other (e.g. how the other one eats or dresses or talks), and does not seek to change the other person into their own image. There is generally a spark of warmth as each person recognizes the value of the other.

Friends generally share an interest of some kind which can provide the content of their shared talk and actions. For a spiritual friendship, I would not see that as limited to the narrow sense of spirituality such as sharing an interest in theology or Biblical studies. I see spiritual friendships as covering any human ground in a spiritual way; it could revolve around gardening or woodworking, art or music which touch on beauty, which in turn communicate holiness.

As a case in point consider the Inklings, an author's club that included both C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien, which was a treasured spiritual friendship. The profoundness of that spiritual friendship -- two men, cultivating a deep and meaningful spiritual bond -- sent a wave of beauty and friendship throughout the world through the writings that they each produced. It is not clear to me whether either of those men could have become what they were alone, without their shared friendship. Together, they strengthened each other, deepened each others' thoughts, warmed each others' souls.

In many fields, the world's greats do not emerge alone. In chess, what would Bobby Fischer have been without his arch-rival Boris Spassky, spurring him on to greater heights? In tennis, is it likely that the Williams sisters would emerge without each other, or was their bond a genuine contributing cause of their excellence? No matter what our gift in life, we will not reach our own heights or fulfill our own purpose alone.