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

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Spiritual Friendship

times. But because his eternal reason demanded it, he wished all his creatures to be joined together in peace, and for community to exist between them. And thus all his creatures are allotted a certain vestige of unity from him who is supremely and purely one. For this reason he left no class of his creatures alone, but he linked them together in a certain community out of diversity. 54. For if we begin with insensible things, what earth, or what river, brings forth stones of just one kind? Or what forest produces just one kind of tree? Thus even among insensible things a certain love of community, as it were, shines forth, since none of these things exists alone, but they all are created and exist with a certain community of type. And indeed, who can easily say how much the type of friendship and the image of community and love shine forth among sentient beings? 11 55. Indeed, although in all else irrational creatures are set apart from humans by their very lack of reason, in this one respect they imitate the human spirit, in that they almost appear to be led by reason: so they follow each other, they play with each other, in their movements and noises they express and give evidence of their mutual affection. So avidly and happily do they enjoy their common community, that they appear to care for nothing more than those things we associate with friendship.

11 Sentient being – a being with senses that is able to recognize and respond to sensations like touch, sight, hearing, touch, taste, or smell.