Friendship IV - the heart.

Thursday, June 25, 2009. Understanding and truth are important parts of relations, in particular of friendship, this important relation which humans can build among themselves. We have talked about the bright yellow of understanding and about the dark blue of truth over the last days. Today we continue our “spectral decomposition” of friendship, we continue to explore its layers. We need to speak about the glowing red light, the symbol for the heart and for sympathy, dedication and love. Red is also a symbol for energy, strength and perseverence.

Friendship needs more than just understanding and truth. Both can remain intellectual, both can stay on a level which does not really touch my heart. But we want to be touched, we want to get involved, we need to be touched deep in our hearts. All humans long for a sympathy which goes beyond the outer layers of our personality and life. We want other people who penetrate us and reach our heart. We want to reach the hearts of others.

Some of us we might be shy, not willing to let anyone come close to us. Some of us seem to be surrounded by a hard and impenetrable shell. The blows of fate can create such shells around us. The hardships of life can have all kinds of strong effects. But that does not mean that we would not long for some people touching our heart. The more we are seperated from others, the more we might realize how lonely we are without a real touch. We need this real touch - and yet we might fear it, since we have burned our hands and hearts too often.

Friendship needs us to open our hearts and to reach the hearts of the others. Friendship is built on sympathy, dedication and love. When friendship happens, all these important features of our existence become activated, they spring to life and start to grow and evolve. We might not be able to open our hearts immediately, not in one day. But we need to start, need to practice, need to plant the seeds of friendship in others and let the seeds grow in us which others have planted. We will see that if we water and nurture these seeds, they will grow into fantastic and green trees. Friendship can be a green pasture, a spring of new life.

This leads us to the most important area of friendship. God wants to be a friend to us who touches our heart deeply. He wants to be there, coming to us, shyly he is standing at our front door and calmly asking us to let him in. This picture of God knocking at our door comes from the New Testament. The image of God as our friend has been explicitly introduced by Jesus, but is is already active in the Old Testament, when God calls himself the God of Abraham, Isaak and Jakob. God defines himself by the people he loves, by his deep and eternal friendship. [R.W.E.P., jesusnetwork.eu]

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