Faithful Friends

“Faithful friends are like a sturdy shelter, whoever finds one, finds a treasure. Faithful friends are beyond price, no amount can balance their worth. Faithful friends are life saving medicine.” Sirach 6:14-16

One of the benefits we experienced with walking the Camino, is the friendships you make along the way. In our long walk together we experienced many of the same joys and pains. We sweat together and shared meals together at the end of a long days walk. We developed friendships based on our shared experiences. Although, Terri and I did not maintain these friendships beyond our time together on the trail, I feel that that there was some real lessons about developing of faithful friends.

The quote from Sirach about faithful friends at the beginning of this blog, contains some wonderful truths about faithful friends. The indeed are a treasure. Terri and I are very fortunate to have some friends we would call “our faithful friends”. We really don’t just find them though because they come from shared experiences and spending time together. I believe that the time we spend together needs to be face to face, if we want to really develop faithful friends.

I don’t see social media as the way to go for building the faithful friendships. In fact, I think that, social media overuse can lead to loneliness and isolation and is not helpful to building long lasting faithful friendships. This is one of the dangers of the times we live in and we should be careful to discipline ourselves and our children to avoid this slippery slope.

Faithful friendships are not easy to develop. It is an investment and often means that if we want them, then we need to be kind and forgiving and encouraging and we need to be there for each other. They take time to develop.

Terri and I are so very proud of our children as they have done a wonderful job developing and maintaining long lasting faithful friends. In fact, Matt has maintain some friendship that started in kindergarten! I find this just remarkable.

Faithful friends are indeed beyond price, they are a true treasure! May we all continue to work on building them and nurturing them!

Blessings and all good,

John

Photograph of the Week

Stark Night

This image was created from a photograph taken during a hike to Tronson Ridge. It was mid-day as we were walking through a burned out forest with the trees still standing. The were so stark and naked. I knew when I captured the image I would want to create something more. I love how the final creative image turned out!