{"id":7029,"date":"2013-06-30T12:10:24","date_gmt":"2013-06-30T19:10:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/?p=7029"},"modified":"2013-06-30T18:35:50","modified_gmt":"2013-07-01T01:35:50","slug":"a-friend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/2013\/06\/30\/a-friend\/","title":{"rendered":"A Friend"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mike-and-me\"<\/a><\/h6>\n
A quick shot with a hand held camera on one of our past “Day in the Desert” one-day retreats.<\/h6>\n

Recently I was listening to a friend pour out a mindful of concerns and stresses and I asked her if she had a best friend. She thought about it, said she had a lot of friends, but couldn’t name one with exactly that description. I recommended she find one.<\/p>\n

The next week she was almost ecstatic to tell me that a long-time acquaintance had called her to talk. Seems her friend’s therapist had been regularly recommending that she find a best friend. (And this is a very \u201ctogether\u201d person who would not normally admit she even went to a therapist.) But just that week, that friend called my friend and asked if they could start getting together on a regular basis, just to talk.<\/p>\n

We were amazed at the timing of all this . . . except that the seeker always finds.<\/p>\n

What the therapist recommended to her client may have come from training; what I’d recommended to my friend comes from experience.<\/p>\n

I’ve had a best friend for most of my adult life. In fact, I’ve had different ones at different times, generally only changing when there’s a change in location and the regular contact is no longer viable. But even that can be overcome.<\/p>\n

I’ve been meeting with my friend Mike Evans on a weekly basis for 20 years! Even during the four years my family and I were away living in Canada we kept in regular contact. And we’ve never missed our annual one-day retreat, our \u201cDay in the Desert,\u201d the long drive and then a long walk to discover whatever<\/em>, but mostly just to talk . . . about whatever<\/em>.<\/p>\n

And \u201cwhatever\u201d is what keeps the conversation going, week after week. From an early time we’ve grown to know each other so well we can bring up anything. Laughter, I should add, is a big part of it. But there’s also the depths, sometimes the pains, the kinds of things one should not have to go through alone.<\/p>\n

Talking things out just helps, as does getting response back. My friend’s friend’s therapist knows that. And so do you.<\/p>\n

They say women need this kind of thing more than men, but I say everybody needs it. And besides needing it, it’s just fun . . . something that adds quality to a life.<\/p>\n

There’s a brief and telling statement in the Old Testament about all this. The writer is listing a long line of officials in the service of King David. At the end he adds one more, distinguished by being in a category of its own: And Hushai the Arkite was the king’s friend.<\/em>*<\/p>\n

So I say, choose someone and meet for coffee. If it goes well, arrange to meet again. If that goes well, agree to keep it going.<\/p>\n

You’ll save on a whole lot of therapy bills, and find yourself adding meaning to your life . . . and that of another.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

____________________
\n* 1 Chronicles 27:33<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here’s a recommendation for quality of life that should be obvious but can be missed without a purposed decision. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7029"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7029"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7052,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7029\/revisions\/7052"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hyattmoore.com\/blank-slate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}