July 31, 2006
-
I'll Lean on You ...
The central theme of my "midlife" transition has been intimacy. I'm not sure when or exactly how it began but I think the first stirrings are from about five years ago. I have always been emotionally independent. It's no one's fault, I'm sure that my experiences have not been so far off from the average of human experience, but somewhere I got the idea that real friendship was about being a kind, engaging, and generous person without asking for as much in return as I was willing to give.
I'm not any kind of Saint Terri, I just somewhere got the idea that's the way it should be...
Kahlil Gibran's wonderful poem "The Prophet" came into my life when I was in college, and I loved his words about friendship. Part of that poem stuck in my mind and became my mantra, it wasn't a new thought, but it expressed my belief about good relationships. Over the years I allowed the passage to mutate in my mind to even more closely conform to my opinion.
... what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
seek him always with hours to live
for it is not his to fill your emtpiness.
Are you familiar with Gibran? Then you probably already noticed the part I left out. And as I read this poem again last night I was struck, hard, by a word that I have previously not focused on in my reading. Need. Gibran uses the word twice, in the opening and again in the closing lines. He neatly frames the verse.
I'm not comfortable admitting that I have needs. I'm much better about confessing after the fact that I HAD a need, but more in an apologetic, "don't worry, it's all taken care of now" kind of way. Needs create dependence (I thought) and I saw that as a very bad thing. From my side, dependence meant that I'm trapped because for some reason I can't do this thing for myself. It meant that I was weak and that I would suffer because the source of my dependence would eventually be gone. I would be left alone and suffering doubly because I failed to grow, to learn, and to take care of myself.
I saw dependence as bad from the other side because then instead of a free coming together of hearts and minds, I believed I'd be a burden, perhaps taken up willingly but eventually becoming such a heavy weight that my friend would have no choice but to leave me behind to preserve his own health and sanity.
So here's what I've learned. That's hogwash. People will most certainly come and go from my life. Right now, I'm in the beautiful place where a number of people have come into my life in recent years and they are enormously enriching me and my world. I'm dependent on them for support, for perspective, for love ... But you know what else? They are dependent on me. And it's not a burden. It's interdependence. Not ONE of the people in my life could ever be replaced. I need them all.
Because I need my friends, I'm taking my needs to them. They have the right of love to know me and to have me be transparent with them. Trying to "ask for less then I'm willing to give" sounds good, but it creates an inequity that interferes with true friendship. I'm at a place, age, stage where I'm not willing to have anything, even myself, getting in the way.
On Friendship
Kahlil Gibran
Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.
When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the "nay" in your own mind, nor do you withhold the "ay."
And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart;
For without words, in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born and shared, with joy that is unacclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not;
For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
And let there be no purpose in friendship save the deepening of the spirit.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.
And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
Comments (9)
That's where I am now.....I believe real friendship is about being a kind, engaging, and generous person without asking for as much in return as I am willing to give.
Wonderful thoughts. I love Gibran....
That particular Gibran outtake used to be my mantra too. I need [hmmm] to work my way back around to that. Yes. I do. I forget what friendship is, sometimes, and the give-and-take of it.
Poppdeck,
I wish I understood this...it sounds important.
Sail on... sail on!!!
Bravo! Congratulations. Life is real then only when we are. Friendship is real then only when we are. Becoming more real is a wonderful gift we may give. It appears one must first give the gift to oneself before one is able to give it to a friend.
it's ok to need. but sometimes what we think we need doesn't always match what we actually do need. and then there's the "want" thing, too...
I feel really sorry for people who for one reason ar another are blocked from sharing there energy of life with others in one fashion or another. I believe that the human intercoursse between us even as in these exchanges over the net gives us energy a healing power for our well being. What I like about this form of comunication is we are dealing with the souls of each of us, and are not influnced by pre concieved ideas of the physical appearance. We can reach the essence of who we really are deep within as God made us. ..............................Hello my friends.........Papa Norm
I used to teach that one of the best ways to move a relationship forward is to ask them to do you a favor. My mother used to beam when the ladies would insist that she bring one of her cakes to the social. The ability to be dependent and independent need to grow at the same time. We seem to have the idea that they are on a continuum but in fact, if we could measure them on a test, one could score high in each of them. In other words, they are not Ipsative.
Comments are closed.