What you have to attempt [is] to be yourself. What you have to
pray for [is] to become a mirror in which, according to the
degree of purity of heart you have attained, the greatness of life
will be reflected.
-Dag Hammarskjold
There is so much to say and so little that can be conveyed. I know from my own path that Eternity is measured in the Infinity of a single breath, not the accumulation of years. And of all the gateways, love and friendship are the most enduring ways to open such a moment. Hard as it is, it is a blessing to travel there together.
The truest of friends help each other navigate between the depth and surface of life. As Kahil Gibran affirms, “love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth.” There is no worldly gain for being friends. There is only loving the gateway that true friendship opens to the mystery of being alive.
I am stunned and moved by the beautiful, entwining paradox of how the particulars of our lives can be so unique and yet when faithfully surrendered to, we all dip our faces in the same luminous pool of grace surrounded by the grit and rim of the human journey. In this way, friendship is the unimpeded breath of our soul softening the world. It is our unfailing closeness to what matters, no matter how elusive or painful, that reveals, without instruction, the seams of our awakening.
This excerpt is from my book in progress, The Spirit of Friendship.
Photo credit: Tom Gainor
