Nudging
A friend is the sharer of your soul
You may already have noticed how in our books Sister Michelle and I use the word “nudge” to describe the work of the Holy Spirit. We think that God nudges people to responsibility & freedom, faith, hope and love, justice and mercy. Often it’s very gentle – a tap or slight touch, a whisper. And sometimes it’s stronger – a poke, a shove. The nudge offers us a free choice into holiness or fullness of life.
Some nudges are life changing. Don Farrow was rector of St Andrew’s, Somerton, Philadelphia. I already had a desire to become a priest (Pat, my girlfriend was the instrument of that nudge). I asked Don if he had any idea about how I might fruitfully use my time during the summer. He said, “Go work for Father Paul Washington at the Church of the Advocate.” Changed my life. Another came 40 years later when I was nudged toward friendship with Sister Michelle. Changed my life. We’ve all known these nudges whether we associate them with God or not. Most are small things. In the back of my mind is “You need to send WomenRising a check.”
Zoe is a barista in the coffee shop I go to most mornings. Yesterday she was making my Americano and asked if I had written another book. I said I thought I may have written all I’m going to write. (Yes, yes, I hear your cheers!!) I thought she looked a bit disappointed with my answer (Hmmm, or maybe I was disappointed with my answer). So, I said something to the effect that if I was going to do another book it would be on friendship. We talked a bit about how friendship seems harder these days. I went and drank my coffee. And I wondered if this was yet another nudge about writing that book. There have been several recently. I even have an outline.
My mind drifted.
For me Zoe is in the category of what Harvey Cox called “I – You” relationships. Not the existential depth of Buber’s “I – Thou” encounters (though maybe for that moment, hmmm) or the purely self-oriented “I – it.” She treats people as beings worthy of respect and dignity – acknowledgment, noticing, curiosity, openness. Not life changing stuff but life affirming. The little things that make a day better.
I recalled that I’d already done some writing about friendship in Fill All Things: The Dynamics of Spirituality in the Parish Church – “Our friends see more of us than others. As with most people, they are at times only aware of what is most visible. But there are also times when they see what is invisible, the unseen—they may see right through our flaws to the image of God.” (Chapter One) and in Finding God in All Things: Contemplation, Intercession, and Intervention - “Help parishioners understand Jesus’s friendships with and love for Lazarus and John. John Henry Newman said, ‘The love of our private friends is the only preparatory exercise for the love of all men.’ Our particular friendships can be the base for expanding our love for others.” (Chapter 4). And I thought about how friendship is part of the foundation of the Order of the Ascension - Father Emmett Jarrett, preached in 1988 when we first took the Promise. He called on us to be a sign of contradiction, hope and love to the world, and to the Church. He called us to friendship with God and with each other. "We are created to be God's friends. God made us for that. Christ lived and died as one of us, and went into heaven to take our humanity into the very life of God, and that we might become God's friends. Christian community in general and your form of it in particular is made for friendship and by friendship. We are to foster friendship with God by being friends ourselves."
Then I thought about the book. It needed a section on the biblical friendships – Ruth and Naomi, David and Jonathan, Jesus and John. And a chapter on the decline of friendships in the US. Another on Aelred’s thinking[i] -- “My friend must be the guardian of our mutual love, or even of my very soul” and his quoting of Ambrose, “For a friend is the sharer of your soul, to your friend’s spirit you join and attach your own, and you so mingle the two that you would like for your two spirits to become one.” And certainly a section on friendships in the parish church. I thought about interviewing people at St. Clement’s.
And that brought me back around to this --
The story of every parish should be a love story. ...One possible definition for a parish is that it is God's way of meeting the problems of the unloved. This meeting between God and the unloved, the unwanted, takes place in the preaching of the Word, in the Sacraments, in the social life of the parish made possible by the climate of acceptance which is engendered by those who have been baptized and confirmed in the Catholic faith. -- Kilmer Myers in Light the Dark Streets
“The climate of acceptance.” I love that phrase. Such open heartedness is the soil. Friendships the fruit. True stuff for a parish church and a coffee shop.
I still don’t know whether I’ll write the book. I know I’d want to do it with Michelle. And I do have an outline. Zoe was the instrument of another gentle nudge. So, maybe.
This abides,
Brother Robert, OA
The Feast of William Wilberforce, Prophetic Witness, 1833
[i] Spiritual Friendship, Aelred of Rievaulx
As I read those word from Kilmer I felt my throat constrict with emotion.
At several times in my life I’ve lived in congregations that had the gift of “meeting the problems of the unloved.”
“A climate of acceptance!” Yes!
It is both a gift and a task. But it is beautiful when it happens.
It is worth working for, and it takes energy and perseverance to sustain.
But the happiest memories of my active ministry come from those times.
Lowell Grisham, O.A.