Recent Tuesday blogs have included C. S. Lewis, writing the days ahead, are better than the past. And a few God is good, all the times. Time and space are concepts of man (sic) and are unrelated to the creator's reality. For this reason many Christian's I know celebrate gratitude for God's work, yet undone. Their faith is the relevant "fudge factor" in how this belief works for them. Having faith that a scratch-off will come up big, is having faith in the wrong things. Having faith in the permanence of the spirit, the awareness of the transience of the flesh, and the importance of "now", is having faith in the right things.
According to the Buddha, when you find the right friends, your journey is half complete. Perchance we are able to reflect on friendships throughout our life. With hindsight we might just see that some friendship's were not all that productive and beneficial. What was our draw initially, to create this/these friendships. Are we still drawn to the same "wants", not needs. Do we seek attention, validation, distraction, enabling, or.......
In my life, I have experienced many ups and downs and I think the most poignant factor of errors, as I look back, involved activities with people who lacked certain important moral restraints. When these deficiencies are not brought into the relationship, we might assume that they are not part of our new found friendship. When the situation finally show, they demonstrate to us, for the first time, that they hold different core values. Do we then, accept, forgive and continue, hoping for a good long friendship before another challenge occurs? Classic definition of insanity, but a common event in most peoples lives. Accept, and forgive, that is always required for your own best self, but distancing is the most logical step to take. There are many definitions of the word friend, admiration, philio love, respect, companionship, but it should always hold a quality of wanting what is best for your friend.
When irreconcilable differences occur, there are many paths to choose from. In marriage, the paths include counseling, lawyer's and obvious choices to make. When differences occur in family, again, there can be intervention, reconciliation, distancing and isolation. When differences occur in friendships, first assure yourself that what you hold to be opposites is true, talk with your friend about the issues, maybe there are different perspectives that change the situation entirely. Then, 'tis best to eliminate these people from what you value as "friendships", becoming co-worker's or friends of friends, just no special benefits.
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