The strife-makers find in themselves, in their barren hearts and empty lives, their own appropriate curse. The blow they strike comes back upon them. Worse than the choleric temperament is the peevish, sullen nature. The one usually finds a speedy repentance for his hot and hasty mood; the other is a constant menace to friendship and acts like a perpetual irritant. The root of this temperament is selfishness, and it grows by what it feeds on.
When offenses do come, we may indeed use them as opportunities for growth in gracious ways, and thus turn them into blessings on the lives of both. To the offended, it may be an occasion for patience and forgiveness; to the offender, an occasion for humility and frank confession; and to both, a renewing of love less open to offense in the future.
The Art of Being a Good Friend
Hugh Black
Category: FRIENDSHIP
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Failure of one often leads to distrust of all. This is the terrible responsibility of friendship. We have more than the happiness of our friend in our power; we have his faith. Most men who are cynical about women are so because of the inconstancy of one.
Most sneers at friendship are, to begin with at least, the expression of individual pain, because the person has known the shock of the lifted heel. Distrust works havoc on the character, for it ends in unbelief of goodness itself. And distrust always meets with its own likeness and is paid back in its own coin. Suspicion breeds suspicion, and the conduct of life on such principles becomes a tug-of-war.The Art of Being a Good Friend
Hugh Black -
However it happen that friends are separated, it is always sad, for the loss of a friendship is the loss of an ideal. Sadder than the pathos of unmated heart is the pathos of severed souls. It is always a pain to find a friend look on us with cold stranger’s eyes and to know ourselves dead of hopes of future closeness. It is a pain even when we have nothing to blame ourselves with, but much more so when we feel that ours is the fault.
The Art of Being a Good Friend
Hugh Black -
We sometimes wonder to find a friend cold and distant to us, and perhaps we moralize on man’s fickleness and inconstancy, but the reason may be to seek in ourselves. We cannot expect the pleasure of friendship without the duty, the privilege without the responsibility. We cannot break off the threads of the web, and then, when the mood is on us, continue it as though nothing had happened. If such a breakage has occurred, we must go back and patiently join the threads together again.
Thoughtlessness has done more harm in this respect than has ill will. If we have lost a friend through selfish neglect, the loss is ours, and we cannot expect to take up the story where we left off years ago. There is a serene impudence about the treatment some mete out to their friends, dropping their friends whenever it suits them and thinking to take them up when it once more happens to suit them. We cannot expect to walk with another when we have gone for miles along another way. We will have to go back and catch him up again. If the fault has been ours, desire and shame will give our feet wings.
The Art of Being a Good Friend
Hugh Black -
On the whole, however, it is not our own liability to death that oppresses us. The fear of it to a brave person, not to speak of a person of faith, can be overcome. It is the fear of it for others whom we love that is its sting. And none of us can live very long without knowing in our own heart’s experience the reality, as well as the terror, of death. This, too, has its meaning for us, to look at life more tenderly and touch it more gently. The pathos of life is only a forced sentiment to us if we have not felt the pity of life. To a sensitive soul, smarting with his own loss, the world sometimes seems full of graves and, for a time at least, makes him walk softly among others.
This is one reason why the making of new friends is so much easier in youth than later on. Friendship comes to youth seemingly without any conditions and without any fears. There is no past to look back at with much regret and some sorrow. We never look behind us until we miss something. Youth is satisfied with the joy of present possession. To the young, friendship comes as the glory of spring, a very miracle of beauty, a mystery of birth; to the old, it has the bloom of autumn, beautiful still, but with the beauty of decay. To the young, it is chiefly hope; to the old, it is mostly memory. The person who is conscious that he has lost the best of his days, the best of his powers, and the best of his friends naturally lives a good deal in the past.
The Art of Being a Good Friend
Hugh Black -
For one thing, it must mean the hallowing of memory. The eclipse of love makes the love fairer when the eclipse passes. The loss of the outward purifies the affection and softens the heart. It brings out into fact what was often only latent in feeling. Memory adds a tender glory to the past. We think of only the virtues of the dead; we forget their faults. This is as it should be. We rightly love the immortal part of them; the fire has burned up the dross and left pure gold. If it is idealization, it represents that which will be, and that which really is.
We do not ask to forget; we do not want the so-called consolations that time brings. Such an insult to the past, as forgetfulness would be, means that we have not risen to the possibilities of communion of spirit afforded us in the present. We would rather that the wound should be ever fresh than that the image of the dear past should fade. It would be a loss to our best life if it would fade. There is no sting in such a faith. Such remembrance as this, which keeps the heart green, will not cumber the life. True sentiment does not weaken, but becomes an inspiration to make our life worthy of our love. It can save even a squalid lot from sordidness; for however poor we may be in the world’s goods, we are rich in happy associations in the past, and in sweet communion in the present, and in blessed hope for the future.
The Art of Being a Good Friend
Hugh Black -
By directing its power toward destruction of this support on which the sinner’s selfishness has established itself and rests, divine, salvific grace carries out the following to awaken the sinner from his slumber: He who is enslaved by pleasing the flesh shall fall ill, and by weakening the flesh, shall give the spirit freedom and power to come to its senses and become sober. He who is preoccupied with his own attractiveness and strength shall be deprived of this attractiveness and kept in a state of utter exhaustion. He who finds refuge in his own power and strength shall be subject to slavery and humiliation. He who relies greatly on wealth shall have it taken from him. He who shows off great learnedness shall be put to shame. He who relies on solid personal connections shall have them cut off. He who counts on the permanence of the order established around him shall have it destroyed by the death of people he knows or the loss of essential material possessions. Is there any way to sober up those kept in the bonds of indifference through outward happiness other than by sorrows and grief? Isn’t our life filled with misfortunes so that it may assist with the divine intention of keeping us sober?
Each destruction of the supports of indifferent self-indulgence constitutes a turning point in life, which, because it is always unexpected, operates in an overwhelming and salvific manner. The sense that one’s life is in danger operates strongest of all in this respect. This sense weakens all bonds and kills selfishness at the very root; the person does not know where to run. The sense of total abandonment is of the same character and special circumstance. Both sense leave a person alone with himself. From himself, the most miserable of creatures, he immediately turns to God.
—St. Theophan the Recluse, The Path to Salvation: A Manual of Spiritual Transformation
SO GOOD QUOTES 