Spiritual Friendship: Learning to Be Friends with God and One Another

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Spiritual Friendship

Robert Waldinger, claims that the study’s clearest message is, “good relationships keep us happier and healthier. Period.” 9 A similar message comes from National Geographic’s Blue Zones project, which identified nine characteristics shared by happy, healthy, and long lived peoples around the world. Friendship was one of these variables, and the researchers point readers to Japan where small groups of Japanese create moais , five friends who commit to each other for their entire life. 10 A third example comes from the research of Robin Dunbar who has spent a lifetime researching human friendship and social networks. He recently summarized the results from numerous studies—including one with over 300,000 participlants—and explained, “Perhaps the most surprising finding to emerge from the medical literature over the past two decades has been the evidence that the more friends we have, the less likely we are to fall prey to diseases, and the longer we will live.” 11 In addition to Scripture and reason, Aelred also gleans wisdom on spiritual friendship from the wisdom of the church (tradition). Aelred engages with wise Jewish and Christian leaders including ben Sira (c. 180−175 BC), Ambrose (d. 397), Jerome (d. 419) Augustine (d. 430), Cassian (d. 435), and Gregory the Great (d. 604). Every year for forty years (as required by the Rule of St. Benedict ) Aelred would have read the spiritual classic Conversations , by Cassian (d. 435). In this spiritual classic Cassian 9 Robert Waldinger, “Transcript of ‘What Makes a Good Life? Lessons from the Longest Study on Happiness,’”www.ted.com, November 2015. 10 Dan Buettner and Sam Skemp, “Blue Zones,” American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine 10, no. 5 (July 7, 2016): 318–21. 11 Robin Dunbar, Friends: Understanding the Power of Our Most Important Relationships (Great Britain: Little, Brown, 2022), 7.