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

56

Spiritual Friendship

At this point a new friend, Gratian, arrives. Aelred explains his thesis—spiritual friendship begins with Christ, grows with Christ, and reaches its destination in spending an eternity together as friends of Christ (2.18−20). Aelred uses Solomon’s description of a kiss between a husband and wife in the Song of Songs, as an example of three levels of friendship (2.21−25). The first level of friendship is illustrated by the bliss of a physical kiss; the second by the joy found in sharing one’s soul in an unguarded way with a friend; and the third by the unutterable joy of conscious union with Christ (2.26−27). 1. AELRED: Come now, brother, give in: tell me why, just a few moments ago, while I was dealing with worldly men and their affairs, you were sitting all alone, removed from us some distance. And just now you were shooting glances this way and that, rubbing your forehead with your hand, and running your fingers through your hair, with your face itself betraying your anger that something has happened to you against your will. So speak. 2. WALTER: That is indeed the case. For who could patiently put up with it all day, when “Pharaoh’s taskmasters” (Exod 5:14) have you all to themselves? You are especially obliged to me, but I can’t seem to have even a word with you. 3. AELRED: This is the sort of thing we must do for those whose favors we desire or whose malice we fear. But now that they’re all gone, our solitude is as welcome to me as the previous bustle was bothersome. For “hunger is the Text Friends Attend to One Another (2.1−3)