Soul Friends

I am blessed to have a group of women who meet together as a covenant group once a month.  We are all clergy and we come together to share our true selves with one another - joys and challenges, laughter and tears, fullness and emptiness.  I often think that without these women, I would be utterly lost as I navigate life, faith and ministry.  I am ever thankful for their friendship and their willingness to be true and vulnerable with one another.  We have what I would call a spiritual friendship -- a friendship that runs deeper than sharing of the latest rumors and celebrity news.  A friendship that isn't accidental and most certainly, is not temporary.

In a world where we talk about "being friends" with such casual voice (how many "friends" do you have on facebook?), to speak of a friendship that goes deeper than the mundane is a challenge.  Few people can relate to what it means to have a true blue friend - that friend we can call at 3am when we are sick and need someone to buy us some ginger ale.  Yet when I speak of spiritual friendship, I am going even beyond deep friendship to a relationship that is more intentional, more bonded by faith and knit together by God.  In these set-apart relationships, there is room for gentle nudging, confessing, anchoring, and directing.  There is a gentleness of spirit and a recognition that the conversations shared are holy and heard -- not just by one another, but by the Spirit.  Conversations together are focused around the challenges of faith and life, the balance of hope and reality, and the very basic "how is it with your soul?" They are friendships that hold us accountable, help us dream, carry us when we are deflated and ground us when we are too far afloat. They are the friendships that not just illumine the darkness, but sit with us in the midst of it as we wait for the dawn of new hope, fresh faith, and a sense of God.  As we strive on toward perfection, it is a spiritual friend that will walk alongside of us every step of the way - come high hills, big bumps, rain or rainbows.

I have to admit, sometimes I feel indulgent when it comes to meeting with my covenant sisters.  It is such a sacred time and it always buoys me for the next round of life.  Yet in those times when it feels too indulgent, I am reminded that the model of spiritual friendships was set before us in the life of Christ.  In the Gospels, we see Jesus living in spiritual friendship with Mary and Mary Magdalene, with Lazarus and Martha, with "the disciple whom Jesus loved."  These are the people who were key in Jesus' life -- the people who knew him best and knew his heart.  Jesus taught us that neither life nor faith were meant to be journeyed alone.

I truly consider myself both lucky and blessed to have found these five sisters in faith to companion with through life, but I would say that it is a blessing to even have one person in life to be this kind of friend.  Who in your life fills this role?  If you can't readily think of someone, I would challenge you to find one person to explore having this type of intentional relationship with.  Maybe it is with someone you already call friend or perhaps it is someone you know on the periphery and would like to know better in an intentional Spirit-led way. Either way, I invite you to take a risk, reach out, be real and be vulnerable with each other in the company of God.  In doing so I believe you will find richness of spirit and heart - a true gift of God's love for each of us.