Sunday, July 31, 2005
friendship and holiness
As I'm planning to write a short book on friendship in the spiritual life, I'm always looking for great source material. I'm beginning by drawing on a paper I wrote during college, which I introduced in this way:
Friendship as Natural for the Human Person
Types of Friendship
Characteristics of True Friendship
* Familiarity
* Choice
* Shared situations and interests
* Pleasure
* Charity
* Self-love
* Trust
* Respect
* Justice
* Criticism
* Virtue
Perfect Friendship
* The nature of ideal friendship
* Exclusivity and perfect friendship
Aims of Friendship
Friendship and Happiness
Caution in Friendship
The Degree of Loyalty Proper to Friends
Can Friendships Last?
Friendship with God
Personal Reflections on Friendship
In the coming weeks, I'll be posting my college essay in sections, with the hope that some of my readers may be able to suggest refinements and developments to this work. I promise that if the work ever goes to print, your contributions will be acknowledged!
Back to Main PageThe topic of friendship has been addressed through the ages in a variety of ways that reflect the very personal nature of friendship; each of the writers that I have researched for this paper have distinctive views on the subject, probably the result of their own personal experiences. However, my goal in writing this paper was not to discover why these writers have arrived at different interpretations of the nature of friendship. Instead, I wanted to examine recurring themes in order to arrive at a description, however incomplete, of what friendship truly is. I chose to analyze the ideas of Aristotle, Cicero, Saint Augustine, Saint Thomas Aquinas, Michel de Montaigne, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Robert Hugh Benson. What follows is a summary of my discoveries.The outline for the college paper was as follows:
Friendship as Natural for the Human Person
Types of Friendship
Characteristics of True Friendship
* Familiarity
* Choice
* Shared situations and interests
* Pleasure
* Charity
* Self-love
* Trust
* Respect
* Justice
* Criticism
* Virtue
Perfect Friendship
* The nature of ideal friendship
* Exclusivity and perfect friendship
Aims of Friendship
Friendship and Happiness
Caution in Friendship
The Degree of Loyalty Proper to Friends
Can Friendships Last?
Friendship with God
Personal Reflections on Friendship
In the coming weeks, I'll be posting my college essay in sections, with the hope that some of my readers may be able to suggest refinements and developments to this work. I promise that if the work ever goes to print, your contributions will be acknowledged!
Comments:
Clayton -- two literary works come to mind: John Eldredge's book *Wild at Heart*, and the splendid film *Return to Me*.
*Wild at Heart* talks mostly to and about Christian men, but one of his "background" reference points is the value of friendship among men.
One of the neat things about *Return to Me* (David Duchovny, Minnie Driver) was Grace's path into her vocation of marriage (I'm assuming marriage): through her family/friends at the restaurant. Certainly, the Holy Spirit was at work (remember the curtain blowing, before she goes downstairs in her robe and runs into Bob?), but it was that set of folks who welcomed Bob in and directly and indirectly set the scene for Grace to feel more comfortable with him; they were also instrumental in her going away to Italy and in encouraging Bob to consider going over there after her. i.e. it is in communitas / in friendships that we come more clearly and easily to our vocation (hermits excepted). Yes, we pray, and duke it out w/ God, but He uses our friends and family powerfully in helping us say Yes to Him.
~Margo
*Wild at Heart* talks mostly to and about Christian men, but one of his "background" reference points is the value of friendship among men.
One of the neat things about *Return to Me* (David Duchovny, Minnie Driver) was Grace's path into her vocation of marriage (I'm assuming marriage): through her family/friends at the restaurant. Certainly, the Holy Spirit was at work (remember the curtain blowing, before she goes downstairs in her robe and runs into Bob?), but it was that set of folks who welcomed Bob in and directly and indirectly set the scene for Grace to feel more comfortable with him; they were also instrumental in her going away to Italy and in encouraging Bob to consider going over there after her. i.e. it is in communitas / in friendships that we come more clearly and easily to our vocation (hermits excepted). Yes, we pray, and duke it out w/ God, but He uses our friends and family powerfully in helping us say Yes to Him.
~Margo
# posted by 
: 7/31/2005 4:00 PM
: 7/31/2005 4:00 PM
In looking for blogs on lay formation, I found this link (which I have NO knowledge re how to make LOOK like a link) that relates to the point I made above about the importance of friends in helping us follow our vocation (not the whole thing; mostly p.7)
http://www.nextreformation.com/html/resources/liminal.pdf
~Margo
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http://www.nextreformation.com/html/resources/liminal.pdf
~Margo
# posted by : 7/31/2005 4:21 PM
: 7/31/2005 4:21 PM
