Friendships

Friendships
by
Linda Pendleton

About four hundred years ago, Shakespeare said, “I am wealthy in my friends.” The dynamics of relationships, even from the child views we once had, teach us who we are. Are we lovable? Are we accepted? Do we have approval? Do we get along with others?

If we do not receive love, or fear that we may lose the love of others, we may then question our sense of self-worth. Don’t we learn early on from social and emotional experiences that love may be withdrawn based on how we behave or with the reaction of others to us?

Love comes wrapped in many packages of different sizes, shapes, forms, and intensities. There is love between parent and child, love between mates, love of family, love of friends, and love encompassing the whole of mankind. And of course, also the love of animals, or pets, which can be a very strong love bond.

I find it interesting how people come and go in our lives, and how some friendships endure time. Do you have that type of friendship where you may not see or talk with the other person often, and even months and years may pass, but the friendship does not suffer and perhaps picks up where it left off, without a skip of a beat?

Have you had friends who had an important impact on your life, and then they went out of your life? Have you learned lessons from the dynamics of friendships? Do you have friends that understand you better than family? Are friends there for you? Are you there for them?

Are you connected intuitively with a friend or friends? Do you feel you have had a relationship with a friend in another time, another place, another lifetime? Many of us do feel that way.

How wealthy are you? It does not have to be quantity. The quality of our friendships is what is so precious. Here are some thoughts on friendships.

“For in the sweetness of friendship
let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.”
~Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931)

"Tis pity not to have a dog, for at the
long day's end, The man or boy will
know the joy, Of welcome from a friend.”
~Edgar A. Guest (1881-1959)

“We have been friends together
In sunshine and in shade.”
~Caroline Sheridan Norton (1808-1877)

“My friends are my estate.”
~Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)


“I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving

for my friends, the old and the new.”

~Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)


“The most I can do for my friend is to simply be his friend.”
~Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862)


“The only way to have a friend is to be one.”
~Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-1882)


“Animals are such agreeable friends—

they ask no questions, they pass no criticisms.”

~George Eliot (1819-1880)


“A true friend is one soul in two bodies.”
~Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)


“A faithful friend is the medicine of life.”
~The Apocrypha, 6:16


“We’re quite a pair, my dog and me,
Friends, companions we’ll always be.”
~Linda Pendleton


“Your friend is that man who knows

all about you, and still likes you.”
~Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915)


“We are all travelers in the wilderness of this world,

and the best we can find in our travels is an honest friend.”
~Robert Louis Stevenson (1850-1894)


“A true friend is the most precious of all possessions
and the one we take the least thought acquiring.”
~Francois de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680)


Friendship

A friendship
is a special, unique state of being–
an entity readily identified
without resort to vows, spiritual or intellectual,
and without recourse to sacraments, dispensations, or decrees...
A friendship is a private thing.

A friendship is not a casual thing–
nor, indeed, is it a thing at all:
it is an essence–a source of things–
yet more than an idea, much more than a suggestion,
and nothing at all like an inspiration;
a friendship is simply a movement, and a meeting,
and a recognition within pure spirit.

A friendship is a romance without flesh–
a love affair with no affair–
a blending of the best that we may offer one another:
it does not demand, it does not fulfill,
and it does not sustain the members...
But it is there, silent and unassuming,
happy and understanding, always ready for instant use;
and it need not be fed, requires no special shelter,
and is big enough to stretch across any distance.

So, say not farewell to me, my friends:
farewell is a strange word, spoken in an alien tongue,
and having no meaning in the framework
of the feelings we share together.

Say, instead: let’s meet again.

~ Don Pendleton (1927-1995)

© Copyright 2009 by Linda Pendleton, All Rights Reserved.