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

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Spiritual Friendship

two people equal (3.90−91), and he discusses the friendship between David and Jonathan as evidence (3.92−96).

Text Without Friendship There Is No Pleasure in Life (3.76−78) 76. AELRED: Just so, it is the task of a prudent man to wait, to rein in this impulse, to affirm the way of good will, to proceed little by little into affection, until finally he may give and dedicate himself totally to his tried and true friend. WALTER: I must confess that I am still moved by the opinion of those who think that one can live more safely without friends of this sort. AELRED: This is astounding, since without friends there 77. AELRED: Pretend that the whole human race has been removed from the world, and that you alone have been left as a survivor. And behold, before you are all the delights and riches of the world—gold, silver, precious stones, walled cities, camps and towers, large buildings, statues, paintings. Or think of yourself as transformed to mankind’s former state, with all things subject to you, “all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field, the birds of the heavens, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas” (Ps 8:7–8; Gen 1:28 ). Now tell me, please, whether you could take pleasure in these things without a companion. WALTER: Not at all. is absolutely no pleasure in life. WALTER: But why, I ask you?