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

194

Spiritual Friendship

Could you send a thoughtful digital communication (voice or video) with words of encouragement or exhortation? Will you decide to use sabbath or spiritual retreat days to write a regular letter to a spiritual friend or a group of friends? You might even consider writing a letter to a friend describing what you are learning about spiritual friendship as a result of reading this book. On March 22, 1758, Jonathan Edwards died at the relatively young age of fifty-four. Shortly before he died, he wrote a final letter to his wife, Sarah. In it he encouraged her with these words, “the uncommon union, which has so long subsisted between us, has been of such a nature, as I trust is spiritual, and therefore will continue forever.” 28 It is not likely that Edwards had read Aelred’s Spiritual Friendship , but he came to a similar conclusion about the eternal nature of friendships rooted in Christ. Early in his first conversation about friendship, Aelred concludes that “friendship is eternal, provided it is true friendship” (1.21). Edwards’ letter to his wife is an example of an eternal spiritual friendship that was nurtured from the time Sarah was thirteen years old. 29 Married Christians are called to nurture a spiritual friendship with one another. Paul Stevens explains that while Aelred wrote his spiritual classic for same-sex friends, Spiritual Friendship Deepened through Christian Marriage

28 George M. Marsden, Jonathan Edwards: A Life (New York: Yale University Press, 2003), 494. 29 Ibid., 93−94.