Friendships: What’s the deal?

Many years ago, two of my friends and I joined together in a contract for a school project. Days after giving our word to each other, one of my friends, Coleridge (name changed) backed off and joined another group. It seems he buckled under the pressure thrust on him by his own friend. A year later, Coleridge confessed that he didn’t mean to desert the group but was under heavy compulsion.

In the confession Coleridge mentioned that his friend, Dawson wondered why he had joined us, hardly knowing us and reminded Coleridge that he shares better camaraderie with himself. As a final argument to convince Coleridge to leave our group, Dawson told Coleridge: it’s not like a legal agreement where you have signed on the dotted line. You can do what you want.

Dawson forgot a few basics about agreements. Let’s remind him about it. When I give my word to a friend, that fact that I don’t sign on a piece of paper only shows that I trust my friend. This ‘understanding’ of friendship reposes trust in one’s word and faith in each other which doesn’t allow anyone to drag the friendship to legal paper.

Hundreds of thousands of people everyday give their word, money and lives to their friends. The guarantee they give is their friendship. In stark opposition, when I take a loan from the bank, you put your house as guarantee for the bank cannot trust if you will run away with their money. The problem is of trust and it is fair. They cannot trust me and I stand to lose my house if I betray them. The same applies in friendship. We trust our friends and it would be silly and shocking for a friend to ask for a guarantee.

When you turn against your word because you think: I am not legally bound means you think you can break anything until you are not legally bound. What about being bound by friendship? Is that not reason enough to keep the oath? Breaking a legal agreement entails punishment which people dread. Turning against one’s word in friendship severs friendship which is a harsher punishment. For in the former case, it is easy to concede punishment on the body while in prison or a punishment in school. But is it easy for one whose sense of friendship has been scourged to love again?

My friend asked for forgiveness and after a year I had forgotten about the incident. But it’s one thing to ask forgiveness, it’s another thing to believe you have been forgiven. Often the shame of what one has done eternally plagues one’s mind. The courts dispense punishment which is atonement. After that it reconciles the criminal back into society as a citizen. But in friendship, is it easy to forgive or believe you have been forgiven?

If everything in the world was only bound by legality, nobody would be able to trust each other. The world would be a difficult and morose place to live in. No friends would keep secrets. If someone took counsel in another and reminded that he said the words in confidence, the other could betray saying: but I wasn’t legally bound, was I? It seems in such a damned world, there is greater regards for bonds of legality than of friendship.

Sharing something in confidence is an act of surrender. It is an expression of free will. My friend is bound by friendship but not enslaved by it for he believes in friendship and in keeping secrets. If my friend keeps secrets as he is bound legally but doesn’t believe in keeping secrets, he is a slave to the law. Friendship frees while the law oppresses.

Dawson suggested to Coleridge that he may break the word given to us as he is not legally bound. Paradoxically, it tells more about the understanding of friendship of Dawson’s of the world and what their own friends can expect from them.

Diamonds to desire

We had to share an assignment with some friends during school. The leader of our group, Jack, was a taskmaster. While he was neither reticent nor curt, people had a penchant to ridicule him. They were of the opinion that he loves to study. Today, we live in a culture that does not appreciate anyone who desires perfection. They ridicule them saying often, ‘You don’t have a life’ or ‘so and so’ is boring. It is a strange and dangerous downwards descent. For only if one is aggressive, one is fun. Only if one is outspoken, shows bravado or can mock others, one has a personality. People usually are more inclined to hold such things in high esteem than to hold in esteem, others who are quiet. Perhaps they are quiet not because they are reserved but because they show restraint.

There was a time when a kid could say his multiplication tables at the snap of fingers and he would be called ‘smart kid’. Nowadays we forget the child put in effort to know his tables. For today, a child who is repulsive to the notion of ‘effort’ and virtue and who can still table the homework albeit unscrupulously is deemed smart. The usage of words has evolved much at the expense of virtue. Is it the death of right usage? Much like the Anti-Christ, we have come to an age of anti-usage. Virtue’s labor lost?

And so Jack, though extraordinarily competent and holding a high order of graces, was still lampooned. I was not party to it. Most of the times, I pitied him for being derided for I saw what others couldn’t: he was very diligent and brilliantly bright. I saw what others saw and yet overlooked. But what pained me is: why did I appreciate this person so much? Why was I in awe of him when he was only an object of humor for the rest?

I had recognized the good where others were clouded. I appreciated Jack because of a diamond. Diamonds are rare and beautiful too. I appreciated Jack, for, like everything rare that is glorified, virtue is rare too. Virtue is noble and all good and hence worth fighting for. As virtue has to be fought for, it isn’t easy. That is why sincerity and perseverance is rare in an individual. Most of the times, they require a fight, a pursuit. Virtue is not by its nature a trait in an individual but a pursuit. We are what we do. We don’t just do virtue, we choose it. A lot of things in the world are done without virtue and the world still functions.

And so I wondered what drove Jack so much that I was bereft of? What did he see in the problem so much that I didn’t? What did he understand that I didn’t? What did he appreciate that I couldn’t? I was in appreciation for these about him. I couldn’t observe the same drive in others about his struggle. I had a diamond of my own.

Explaining away Explanations

A year ago, my sister received a call. She spoke at length. After the call she raced into my room and screamed: It was Peter (name changed). Peter was her estranged friend. They had fallen out on some issue and after a year, all of a sudden, he called and my sister was more than joyful to reconcile. History goes that one fine day he just refused to speak to my sister. My sister tried with no avail to reach to him but he cut off all lines of access. She was unforgivable.

I asked my sister in passing: did you ask him for an explanation? She was perhaps just too happy to win her friend back and didn’t bother. I was assertive: you mean he did not apologize or explain his behavior? Does that mean you’ll don’t start from clear consciences but just take off where you’ll left it? Unexplained and open chapters that you’ll are just bypassing? Wouldn’t it bother you? How could he act so? Just put the plug on communication one day and on another, resume it. Doesn’t it matter to him what you think of it? He starts it, he stops it, never mind what you feel? He is treating you like an object.

She understood but did not comply. Why? Why didn’t she yield to my reasoning and be urged to action? I am glad she didn’t toe the line to my reason for what I am about to tell you. A month ago I had a mild tiff with my friend. I fantasized receiving a call from my own version of an ‘estranged friend’ (I actually waited two days for that call). I wondered how it would it be; what I would tell her. I promised myself I won’t rake the past and embarrass her.

Oops! I have just hit a ‘contradicting your own principle speed breaker’. Was I turning back on my principle? I recalled the incident with my sister and what I thought then was weak and submissive(of her) suddenly dawned on me to what it really is: Compassion. I will give you another one: Forgiveness. I learned something by just fantasizing that call.

I didn’t require an explanation because I had forgiven the person. There is no need for explanation to comfort me anymore. People desire explanations when they are unwilling to forgive others easily (unless it’s a job and responsibility has to be pinned for atonement, c’mon we know the difference between two friends and a professional arena).

People want explanations on why they were treated like objects (remember my sister?) but isn’t that what Christianity teaches us? That people are going to persecute you, anyone can love a friend, great is the one who can love his enemies, pray for those who persecute you, this is my command, that you love one another as I have loved you(the ‘my’ & ‘I’ is Jesus)
In a nutshell, Christianity says forgive others when they don’t give you what is due to you: respect, dignity. Isn’t forgiveness all about being alright about being treated like objects not because you are a pushover but precisely because you have managed to kill your pride and drown your ego?

That you think you are not beyond humiliation if Jesus Himself was humiliated, spat on, slapped, scourged? If God could empty out himself and take the form of Man for love, surely we could also lower our guard and confess: alright, so my friend tripped. Do I have to embarrass him by asking uncomfortable questions? This for me is at the heart of forgiveness.

A lot of people might seem to tell us that “Oh Forgiveness needs lot of love and generosity” True. I don’t disagree one bit. But another interesting point I have to add is that: Knowing our own limitations that we aren’t infallible and are just as inclined to fall as anyone else: Humility. Humility also helps to forgive. Humility is the Arch of Forgiveness.

The Saints did it all

The list of 'been-there-done-that' will always include: Smoking,drinking and other 'ings' that I better not plunge into. Most of them will see its place in our college years. Two years ago my friend quit smoking. A year ago he, he always mentioned how he valiantly steered the ship of fortitude and trounced the habit and expunge his system of the toxicant. He always sensed a pride of quitting the cesspool of lighting up and one could always feel the emancipation in his words.

Two weeks ago, my friend smoked again. That is why I started with saying my friend quit two years ago. He did not resume the habit but rather caved in after two years. We cannot call him completely clean as he relapsed though we don't have to 'brand' the poor bloke. Two years, without the stick, he was unblemished, two weeks ago, he was lonely, passions created a revulsion, nostalgia kicked in, one thing led to another and he activated the dormant account.

My point is not to belittle my friend's achievement or hail his effort. My point is this: We can never claim we have trounced our weaknesses or that we are larger than our temptations. We can never arrogantly affirm that we are stronger than our weakest temptation. St. Theresa of Avila said, "Our temptations are the measure of our weakness"

We are enslaved as long as we think we are liberated. But as long as we think we need God's grace to 'Lead Us Not into Temptation’, may be the grace will keep coming. The moment we allow some pride to creep into our system over our achievement and trivialize an ‘erstwhile conquered vice’ (like saying smugly, ‘Smoking was so difficult but I nailed the thing and broke off, I was better than it), we ascribe to the struggle our own strength and consequently, grace may in turn, be stifled. We may be on our own from then on: with all passions and no grace.

Not that God abandons us for our wee bit of human pride. For spiritually, we yet love God and recognize his working. But humanly, we are left to ourselves. We are allowed to fall and to realize how much more we need God. St. Thomas Aquinas calls this the fear of God1 : Fear of separating oneself from God. He describes the gift as a "filial fear," like a child's fear of offending his father, rather than a "servile fear," that is, a fear of punishment
We are left to ourselves to realize how much we need God and how foolish it is to think we have conquered over selfishness, over alcohol, smoking, lust, greed, gluttony, sloth or anything that defiles us in excess.

That is why also, I believe the Saints are the real heroes of the world for they showed true heroism in the taming of their passions . They did this not to self-indulgently reach perfection but for the love of God, dedicating themselves to things larger than themselves. A fool abstains (in line with taming of the appetite) just to see how far he can go with it. If he does it just to know ‘his’ capacity, it’s still about himself: how far ‘he’ can go, what ‘he’ can do, how strong ‘he’ is, how much adulation ‘he’ can receive from it, how much ‘his’ ego can get boosted. The struggle only fills himself more with himself. It is all about his pride and his achievement and his glory.

But the saints did not know what they can do or what can be done through them. They conquered not by strength but by abandonment to God. Not by holding within but by letting go. That is why we may be glorious in many a things in life either at work which is a necessity or at a hobby by skill. But try doing what your mind doesn’t aid. (Skill comprises what your mind is disposed towards. Try playing a game you are a novice at just to accompany your friends even though you could have played another game you are skilled at). Try involving in something your passions rebel against (try standing through your journey rather than taking a seat. The passions within will commence screaming: No No! It’s a long journey, you can read the paper, you will get tired, you paid for the seat etc). Try choosing something your will does not incline towards (try choosing a meal you least prefer. The will does not comply to do it for there is no purpose driving the will, I can understand).

They will all cry for a purpose. Why should I play a game I am not good at? Why should I stand when I have paid for the seat? Why should I eat something I prefer less over something I prefer more? Even a sportsman will subdue his passion: give up that what brings him down (smoking, junk food) but he too has a purpose: The purpose to win the trophy aids him. I have a friend who once told me: I don’t eat meat on Tuesdays. On asking him why such a noble pursuit, he replied: Just that, I don’t eat. I didn’t know how much nobility prevailed if he didn’t know himself why he was doing it.

Training of your passions is as good as the purpose or motive to pursue it. Even self-development is a noble ideal. A man who increases his hours of reading because he believes reading is a good thing is motivated by his conviction of goodness of reading and the good reading will achieve in his life: self-development.

The saints had ‘all for you my Lord!’ as their motive and their lives are an extra-ordinary testimony of grace. They died eventually doing the will of God throughout the ages 2. Their lives stand as a salute to what the desire to love God can do and their death sees the rejoicing of angels in awaiting the banquet in Heaven. But before the climax came the everyday heroism which Mother Teresa of Calcutta talks about as ‘Little acts done with great love’. In St. Paul’s words, the saints died daily3. While Christ’s ‘once and-for-all’ death on the cross received for them their redemption. For the saints, the memory of Christ’s choice of death motivated them out of love to die daily in little things in the hope that like the grain of wheat they may too rise again4

It all started with one action at a time and from there it reached Hospitals, schools, Colleges, Homes for the Poor, aged or those rejected by Society. While we can have any and all the purpose we want: self-development, trophies and the likes, their testimony of faith through their testimony of grace is there to see everywhere in the world and goes to exemplify how much their purpose eclipsed sublimity and continues to be today for every potential saint in every corner of the world. The saints, always fired up by their zeal burning like a beacon set ablaze the paths everywhere they tread.

Each of us who studies the lives of the saints is passed on this fire whether we encounter them in our schools as St. Francis of Assisi or in colleges as St. Thomas or Books of Prayers. First, we have to start with our own passions. What do we have to die towards, today?

1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_gifts_of_the_Holy_Spirit
2 The Liturgy of Mass: Liturgy of the Eucharist, Eucharistic Prayer II
3 1 Corinthians 15:31
4 John 12:24

Prayer: The Conversation filled with Grace

We keep cribbing that we don’t receive what we ask in our prayers. We have to be patient. If the fruits of answered prayers don’t show up the fruits of praying and being patient surely do. Often the act of praying gives us things what the content of prayer does not. If a prayer is not answered, the very act of praying can strengthen us to endure what is lacking. Only if we continue to pray. After all, do we pray because we are needy. Or do we need to pray? We have to choose between the two dichotomous ideas and when we choose the latter, in ways only God knows, we begin to understand how the need to find prayer in our lives gives us what we pray to find in our lives.

I Can Be Proud

Mikhail and Dave were entering the parking lot. Mikhail’s parents had come to pick them up from school. Just then, a student whizzed passed in his new sedan. This was Roger who brought a new car. His father was known to be a wealthy businessman, something Roger was very proud of. If anything, Roger could live only for the pride that came with the dealings and interactions of Roger and his father with the who’s who of the rich and famous.

Dave said, “Mikhail, Look at Roger, so happy with his new sedan. It seems like he needs nothing more. Yesterday he was giving us a session on what all the sedan can do and what speed it clocked. Roger’s a real lucky guy. He has taken his friends for a ride today and Sasha has been speaking to him now. Everyone’s all over him.”

And Mikhail says, “Little things always make us feel good. It is in our nature and of this world to feel proud when I have something you don’t or to possess something rare and valuable. It gains us attention. We are in the spotlight and feel like a one minute celebrity. We have achieved something others can’t. People will look up to us with awe and often, only God is given that honor. We are treated as if we created a miracle, we are treated like demigods. Pride is wishing to be like God in our own way without explicitly desiring to compete with God.

I think the only time we can feel proud is when we are righteous in the eyes of God and have done his will. For everything else, we have to bow before God and Man, like Jesus did to the extent of washing people’s feet. Washing people’s feet in our world can mean doing thins we think is below our dignity whatever our sense of dignity is, whether we are bureaucrats, nurses, parents etc.

But there is only one dignity in God’s eyes: Children of God. We all can pick up a peel lying on the floor. If we can feel like and be the maid for a moment, perhaps we can stand before God, humble and contrite and God may not turn away his face. But who can claim righteousness before God when everything is his grace and we merely participate and attune our will to his good? I can be proud that every time I try, I make a choice. I merit that grace. I choose what I will be: In the spotlight before men or spotless before God. My pride lies in my choice

Heaven: It's all worth it

Dave and Mikhail are walking out of their classrooms. They have just finished their Calculus exam. Dave looks at Mikhail with a grin. Mikhail asks: What’s the matter? I didn’t know calculus was so easy? Dave responds: I did write my paper well. It doesn’t reflect my grasp over calculus. It’s just that I watched a good movie yesterday while I should have been studying. All morning I was wondering if I would regret watching that movie. But my paper went really well. I could savor stealing an hour or two to watch the movie. I feel its all worth it.

And Mikhail says:

When you indulge in something and are afraid wondering if the indulgence will be too high a price to pay. Tomorrow when things go your way, you realize that it’s all worth it. Heaven will be something like that. You don’t understand the pain. You don’t understand how your suffering has value. You don’t understand why you fall face first in spite of trying so hard. Why do you feel dry instead of praying so hard? Why does the world seem not to transform in spite of pouring all the optimism. Why does the world still feel material and shallow even when you try to feel supernatural as if everything counts: all your effort. But one truth will come, heaven will not pass but will prevail and it will all be accomplished. Everything you did- the leaf you picked up, the people you succored, the neighbor you lent a hand to. The kid you helped with mathematics. The lunch you skipped. The expensive racket you let go to buy your brother a shirt. It will all have accomplished their ends. Heaven will make every sacrifice, a jewel in the crown. Heaven will make every moment of trial, a triumph. Heaven will make every moment of effort, an eulogy.