Spiritual Friendship
Friendship has
always belonged
to the core of my
spiritual journey.
~ Henri Nouwen
Spiritual Friendship
Friendship
The Heart’s Counting
The Heart’s Counting Knows Only One
by Jane Hirshfield
In Sung China,
two monks friends for sixty years
watched the geese pass.
Where are they going?
one tested the other, who couldn’t say.
That moment’s silence continues.
No one will study their friendship
in the koan-books of insight.
No one will remember their names.
I think of them sometimes,
standing, perplexed by sadness,
goose-down sewn into their quilted autumn robes.
Almost swallowed by the vastness of the mountain,
but not yet.
As the barely audible
geese are not yet swallowed;
as even we, my love, will not entirely be lost.
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As You Find
Take everyone as you find them. Do not make your mind
up about them based on what other people tell you about
them, and most especially not on what they tell you about
themselves. Both are almost invariably skewed. People
have their own prejudices against and biases toward others,
and have their own hang ups or high opinions about themselves.
And when entering a conversation with others, in a public
setting, leave all personal bias, such as friendships, out
of the equation as far as possible, as that leads to a more
unbiased seeing of what actually is. Not an easy task, I
know.
~ Gill Washington
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Farewell Lines
By William Wordsworth
“HIGH bliss is only for a higher state,”
But, surely, if severe afflictions borne
With patience merit the reward of peace,
Peace ye deserve; and may the solid good,
Sought by a wise though late exchange, and here
With bounteous hand beneath a cottage-roof
To you accorded, never be withdrawn,
Nor for the world’s best promises renounced.
Most soothing was it for a welcome Friend,
Fresh from the crowded city, to behold 10
That lonely union, privacy so deep,
Such calm employments, such entire content.
So when the rain is over, the storm laid,
A pair of herons oft-times have I seen,
Upon a rocky islet, side by side,
Drying their feathers in the sun, at ease;
And so, when night with grateful gloom had fallen,
Two glow-worms in such nearness that they shared,
As seemed, their soft self-satisfying light,
Each with the other, on the dewy ground, 20
Where He that made them blesses their repose.–
When wandering among lakes and hills I note,
Once more, those creatures thus by nature paired,
And guarded in their tranquil state of life,
Even, as your happy presence to my mind
Their union brought, will they repay the debt,
And send a thankful spirit back to you,
With hope that we, dear Friends! shall meet again.
1842.
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The Force of Friendship
By Rumi
A sea-cow, a dugong, finds a special pearl
and brings it up on land at night. By the light it gives off
the dugong can graze on hyacinths and lilies.
The excrement of the dugong is precious ambergris
because it eats such beauty. Anyone who feeds on Majesty
becomes eloquent. The bee, from mystic inspiration,
fills its rooms with honey.
So the dugong grazes at night in the pearl-glow.
Presently, a merchant comes and drops black loam
over the pearl, then hides behind a tree to watch.
The dugong surges about the meadow like a blind bull.
Twenty times it rushes at nothing, passing the mound
where the pearl is.
So Satan couldn’t see
the spirit-center inside Adam.
God says, Descend,
and a huge pearl from Aden gets buried under dirt.
The merchant knows,
but the dugong doesn’t.
Every clay-pile with a pearl inside
loves to be near any other clay-pile with a pearl,
but those without pearls cannot stand to be near
the hidden companionship.
Remember the mouse on the riverbank?
There’s a love-string stretching into the water
hoping for the frog.
Suddenly a raven grips the mouse
and flies off. The frog too, from the riverbottom,
with one foot entangled in the invisible string,
follows, suspended in the air.
Amazed faces ask,
“When did a raven ever go underwater
and catch a frog?”
The frog answers,
“This is the force of Friendship.”
What draws friends together
does not conform to Laws of Nature.
Form doesn’t know about spiritual closeness.
If a grain of barley approaches a grain of wheat,
an ant must be carrying it. A black ant on black felt.
You can’t see it, but if grains go toward each other,
it’s there.
A hand shifts our birdcages around.
Some are brought closer. Some move apart.
Do not try to reason it out. Be conscious
of who draws you and who not.
Gabriel was always there with Jesus, lifting him
above the dark-blue vault, the night-fortress world,
just as the raven of longing carries the flying frog.
Rumi Mathnawi, VI, 2922-2973
From This Longing by Coleman Barks and John Moyne
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