Tim Keller, once again, said something that drove deep into my soul:
“A true friend always lets you in . . . and never lets you down.”
Am I that kind of friend to anyone? I think so. I hope so. I have a few people in my life who return that favor. But not many after six decades of whatever it is that has diverted my attention. I suppose achievement has been my god — but not my friend.
C.S. Lewis’s famous passage from The Weight of Glory speaks to this issue well:
“There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations–these are mortal, and their life is to
ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work
with, marry, snub, and exploit–immortal horrors or everlasting
splendours. This does not mean that we are to be perpetually solemn. We
must play. But our merriment must be of the kind (and it is, in fact,
the merriest kind) which exists between people who have, from the
outset, taken each other seriously–no flippancy, no superiority, no
presumption. And our charity must be real and costly love, with deep
feeling for the sins in spite of which we love the sinners–no mere
tolerance, or indulgence which parodies love as flippancy parodies
merriment. Next to the Blessed Sacrament itself, your neighbor is the
holiest object presented to your senses.”