Today's readings from Mass seem to talk about friendship. At least the commentary on my eletronic breviary seemed to think so on this feast of St. Aelred:
Friendship: the love that dare not speak its name
Once upon a time, there was friendship. Once upon a time, society accepted that the love of friends could be the single most important thing in a person’s life, and they did more than just accept, they celebrated the fact. Throughout history, discourses and sermons have been written in praise of friendship. When Alfred Tennyson’s friend Arthur Hugh Hallam died tragically young in 1833, he spent the next seventeen years writing the great poem “In Memoriam” as a memorial to his friend; and Hallam is a first name used among the Tennyson family to this day. Looking further back, we can see Damon and Pythias, Pylades and Orestes, David and Jonathan...
Perhaps the change was the fault of Freud and Oscar Wilde; and then again, perhaps not. But today no love is accepted as valid that is not in some way sexual, and even if we set out to reject the sex-obsessed outlook of today’s society, we think in those terms despite ourselves. When St Aelred writes of “this most loving youth”, we all say to ourselves “oh yes” in a knowing way, sure that we have guessed the smutty truth.
What a waste! What a wicked denial and perversion of love! God has made friendship – did not Christ have his own beloved disciple? – and how dare we corrupt it and deny it! Of course, we must not despise sex: sex is holy, divinely ordained as a way of love and procreation – but it is not the only love. Friendship is not “mere” friendship, not a second-best; still less is it a repressed substitute for erotic love. It is a love in its own right, powerful, holy, overwhelming. A world with Eros but without friendship is a world full of isolated, self-obsessed couples, of love unshared – a sad thing indeed. And we are heading that way.
The denial of friendship is an evil thing and evil in its effects. When my pulse beats faster at the sight of my friend, when his presence feels like a bolt of electricity – is this really sex in disguise? Am I to run away – which would be a tragedy – in order to preserve my chastity, or am I to try to overcome my revulsion and make a pass – which would be worse? Modern society seems to give us nothing but this harsh choice between a cold heart and a hot body. Who knows how many of the impressionable young are led into ultimately unendurable vices precisely because they cannot face what seems the only available alternative? And when, as is inevitable, they have destroyed friendship by turning it into something it is not, what choice do we give them but to repeat the error, each time more desperately? As if one could see the stars by diving ever deeper into the mud!
Let us accept friendship. Let us accept it as a true and passionate gift of God. Let us accept it in others without reading anything else into it – “repressed” or not. Let us rejoice if it is given to us, be glad if it is given to others. Jonathan loved David not because of what he could get out of him, but because he was David: let us celebrate this motiveless love of the Other, an echo of the pure love of Heaven. We ought to love everyone like that: but one should at least start somewhere.
And if, like Aelred, we have made the mistake of seeking a physical consummation of a love that does not require it, then let us, like St Aelred, not recoil from that love but go forward, transcend that error, until the love becomes a redeemed and radiant thing that others will see and rejoice, giving thanks to God.
(Universalis Breviary)
While at my pool aerobics class at the Oak Square YMCA this morning, this particular intrerpretation got exploded by a conversation I had with a mentally challenged individual whom I see there almost daily. Now remember, I do not usually strike up a conversation while I'm showering, but this man was irrepressable and needed to tell me something important. Even though a person he works with says he "looks and talks funny", he really likes his work. It makes him feel important and makes him happy. So he reaches into his locker and pulls out a wallet and shows me his work card: "Best Buddies". He took great delight in telling me that when he minds the phone there he gets a lot of calls from people who are looking to talk with "Best Buy", the computer and electronics store!
Best Buddies (http://www.bestbuddies.org/)is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization dedicated to establishing a global volunteer movement that creates opportunities for one-to-one friendships, integrated employment and leadership development for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Founded in 1989 by Anthony Kennedy Shriver, Best Buddies is a vibrant, international organization that has grown from one original chapter to more than 1,400 college, high school and middle school campuses across the country and internationally. Best Buddies programs engage participants in each of the 50 United States. They have accredited international programs on six continents with additional country programs under active development.
Their six formal programs – Best Buddies Citizens, Colleges, e-Buddies®, High Schools, Jobs and Middle Schools – will positively impact more than 400,000 individuals this year. Best Buddies also is systematically implementing its 2010 initiative that will witness the organization's continued significant growth, both domestically and overseas. Best Buddies volunteers annually contribute services to the community that equate to more than $70 million USD.
Even though Best Buddies has advanced tremendously in its short existence, many areas of the country and many regions of the world still lack programs to help people with intellectual disabilities become part of mainstream society. Their goal is to continue expanding nationwide and at the local community level, while more broadly engaging the global community through their programs. (Taken from Best Buddies internet site)
I've learned to worship Christ as He lives in other people, especially the kind that surprise or annoy me. Its easy to echo Gerard Manley Hopkins here, "For I greet him the days I meet him, and bless when I understand."
As Greg Boyle says in his book "Tattoos on the Heart": Our common human hospitality longs to find room for those who are left out. It's just who we are if allowed to foster something different, something more greatly resembling what God had in mind.
My definition of friendship grew a lot today because of my new "Best Buddy" friend.
