Heard from a friend today about a friend of theirs -- ("a friend of a friend"? Nah! That'd be cliche.) -- who has recently suffered the indignity of being betrayed by yet another "friend" -- ("a friend of a friend of a --" oh, nevermind!).
Anyway, their world is still rocking and reeling like a January 12th in downtown Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Friend.
The very word implies much more than the dictionary suggests. But at the least, you would expect to speak and act in an atmosphere of trust with someone who accepts the designation of "friend."
Yet, consider this:
Most of the damage you receive in life will come at the hand of one so named. Your deepest wounds, your darkest hours, your most complete brokenness . . . all these will come through one called "friend".
No one else knows your secrets. No one else is intimate with the tiny gaps in your armor. Not one but a friend can strike the mortal blow from such a close and unguarded distance.
What's the solution? To abandon all friendships? That is but another form of suicide. It is to cast off life itself. Better to be a stone than to own no friends in a world built for them.
No. Risk and Life are both four-letter words. They both are by-products of having friends.
False friends? Eventually, they have no friends . . . or any life. They just self-destruct.
Real friends? Ah! there's the gold that makes Fort Knox appear a ghetto!
