Originally published in The Catholic Times September 8, 2013 Volume 62:42
The invitation appeared in my email: A birthday party for Mike. I’ve known him since I was eighteen. Then we both played guitar, sang, wrote songs, and energized the local “folk Mass” movement after Vatican II. He and his wife, Patty, welcomed me into their home, and I babysat for their young children who clamored for Mike’s attention when we practiced music there. Patty always came to the rescue. Over the years, my guitar has seen less use. Mike’s is always humming.
Having made adjustments to my work schedule, I picked up a friend and we drove together to the party. Mike was turning 75.
“Couldn’t miss this,” I said as we traveled from one small berg to another.
My friend nodded. “There are plenty of things in life that are hard, that bring tears. We must celebrate the happy moments. What brings life, and joy,” he said, his voice as Italian as the gift of wine resting at his feet.
Light and Irish music poured out of the American Legion as we walked toward the door. The evening was an embarrassment of riches: Greetings, hugs, and friends gathered to tell stories and catch up on one another’s lives. Food and drink kept coming, and everyone joined in a refrain written for the occasion. Mike, Nick, and Anne, who have been singing together for years, treated us to a few songs while the singing Ladies of Longford took their break. More music. More conversation.
Driving through night on my way home, I thought about friendship. What is the grace of friendship? What moves someone out of the mass of acquaintances into that treasured group? Into one’s heart and soul? Sometimes a friend, like Mike, is someone known for decades. On the other hand, I spent a week last year in Seattle with a friend I had known for just three weeks while attending the same school of theology during a summer session ten years ago.
It’s not how long I’ve known someone; it’s how we’ve “been with.” It might be through difficult times.
“When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us,” Henri Nouwen wrote in The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey, “we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand.”
I have a friend who has spent much time and energy creating a safe space for women to be with other women, to listen to each other’s stories. That’s enough. It’s more than enough. Problems aren’t solved, but the women are present and listen with hearts as well as ears.
Sometimes, like at the party, friends share joy and celebration. They laugh at our jokes and look at our photos. Always, they are “with.”
Friends tell me the “theme” of my writing is “being present,” everything comes back to that. It’s true. But it’s true because that’s where we find God and Grace and what matters. That’s where friends are made.
In her book, The Rule of Benedict: A Spirituality for the 21st Century, Joan Chittister recounts an ancient tale of the Holy One and a disciple who is looking for direction. Despite the answers that enlightenment is happening every moment, in every place, wherever one looks, the disciple is frustrated. “Why don’t I see it? Do I have to look in a special way?”
The Holy One assures the seeker that the ordinary way of seeing is fine. When the disciple protests, “Isn’t that how I always look?” the answer comes: In order to look, you have to be there, and the disciple is usually somewhere else.
As I pulled into my driveway, I gave thanks for the friends who grace my life. The people who have taken time to be with me. To look at stars, walk beaches, sing songs, hold my hand, and to sit with me as I looked uncertainty in the eye and leaned into it instead of running away. I gave thanks for those who shared food and wine, laughter and tears, good books and movies, and doing nothing in particular.
They show me the face of God.
© 2013 Mary van Balen
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