Monday, October 8, 2012

Festival of Friendship



“Oh the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person, having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but pouring them all right out, just as they are -- chaff and grain together -- certain that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keep what is worth keeping, and with the breath of kindness blow the rest away.”


~Dinah Maria Mulock Craik, A Life for a Life


born April 20, 1826 in Stoke-on-Trent, The United Kingdom
died October 12, 1887

Dinah's mother died while Dinah was still a teen. At that time, she moved to London to try to support herself as a writer, first of children's literature, than advancing with her pen to a status accorded few women of her day.

The quote is a favorite since about 1974 when my then-roommate, a real writer-turned-banker, and I poured over this one in a book about friendship. Little did I imagine the value true friendships would offer in unfolding decades of life as we feasted on other favorite books back then.

Never minimize such an estate as friendship, my friend urged.

She bristled to hear people dismissively refer to such a relationship as, "...we're just friends." As though that is of no account.

If you are blessed enough to have a true friend, or if you are blessed upon the remembrance of a dear friend, read the passage above and give thanks.

"What sweetness is left in life, if you take away friendship? Robbing life of friendship is like robbing the world of the sun."
~ Cicero