Friendship

“Friendships are a little like our backyard gardens. We intend to take care of them, but then we wind up putting it off until next week.”

That’s a quote from one of my favorite tv shows, Boston Legal. In that episode, attorney Jerry Espenson was sharing that insight with fellow attorney Alan Shore. Alan had just come to the realization of how significantly he had neglected his friend Jerry, who is an incredibly intelligent and kindhearted man afflicted with Asperger’s Sydrome.

I think Jerry was right.

Some years, my back yard garden flourishes under my tender care. In other seasons, my focus shifts and it receives very little time and attention. In fact, the past two summers, I have left every pot empty, knowing I don’t have time to coax another flat of Vinca through the desert heat. Yet, with one afternoon’s serious effort, my backyard will offer a color display that renews my spirit with each glimpse out my window.

Friendships don’t always wait like empty pots to welcome new seedlings. But I’ve been blessed by some that do. While new acquaintances are fun, and spring into our lives like the newest variety of a showy annual, I think the ones that rescue my heart are a bit more like mums.  Perennial and trustworthy, bringing a last breath of color into my autumntimes, even when I’d forgotten they were there.

Perhaps I will try to tend more carefully to my friendship garden. While I won’t ever be good at remembering birthdays, or scheduling lunch; I will be more mindful about offering my thank yous to God, who seems to plant just the right friend in my path—sometimes quite literally in my path—at just the right times. And I will pray for my friends who may not even know they’re in my thoughts or tucked into the special places in my heart. Perhaps they’ll feel it when the Spirit offers a gentle bit of breeze to soothe their souls, or when just the right song comes on as they wait in line at the supermarket.

I hope you each have a friendship that sustains you. If you don’t, it will come. Start with planting little seeds of love and adoration in your own heart. We have to love ourselves completely and unconditionally. Then sharing that kind of love and friendship will be a natural extension of ourselves. And in that abundance, goodness will grow.

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