AFTER THE CRASH

FRIENDS, TRUST, FUTURE

"To be trusted is a greater compliment than to be loved."

George MacDonald

Scottish Pastor, Poet, Novelist

       A misfortune in the blogosphere took down this blog and all of the others in the Blogger world yesterday.  

       We all take these things differently.  It disrupted a flow of thought I was to offer on friendship. It forced upon me a feeling of helplessness.  Here again we count on systems to link us and when they fail, we feel a disconnect and frustration.

"Gratitude looks to the past and love to the present:

fear, avarice, lust and ambition look ahead."

CS Lewis 

English Novelist, Literary Scholar, Theological Writer

       A recent reunion of friends, and the struggle of other friends with health and medical problems has prompted a recent field of emotion. 

       MacDonald, quoted above, was the creative godfather of Lewis.  MacDonald, Lewis said, "baptized his imagination."

I would enjoin his thought by adding that friends provide both love and trust.  

     Grateful we are for friends, old and new. In that we cover the past and present.  And for some we worry, even fear, the battles they fight.

"The love of our neighbour (friend*) is the only door out of the dungeon of self where we mope...."  *interpretation mine

MacDonald

     Mindful of my teacher of writing Harriet Mcguire, I will try to bring this "full circle." 

     Connectivity to this world of the blog, to you as readers,

is modern friendship. There is a trust. There is gratitude and even expectation. A broken system disrupts and causes worry.

     Long time friends bring joy, comfort and a peace. A threat to them disrupts and causes worry.

"In a world we find terrifying, we ratify that which doesn't threaten us."

David Mamet 

US Dramatist, Screenwriter and Director

     A couple of new friends of friends were introduced to the Friday lunch flash mob on the Sebastians' deck below the castle today.  They are in transition, their lives are changing and they now step into the stream of friendship of others who have done like wise previously. It is a kind of ritual.  

     By sharing accounts of distant friends, a new circle of friends widens even more.  Private concerns of an old friend in a distant place are shared and woven into the fabric of the social group. This is repeated and the widening continues and the interconnectedness builds. 

    Though the values differ immensely, there is a similarity of pattern.  A diagnosis from a distance, a disruption in harmony, a break down in technology, a disconnection all encroach upon and remind us of the  "life web" that links us.

    We respond differently.  Some of us need to brood, or be pensive as we seek understanding, if not a place of trust.

"The absence of the urge to create is decadence."

David Mamet

      So in the very least, we seek to create moments of 

friendship, reasons for gratitude.

      Friends, trust, a sense of future, it is a continuum.

      See you down the trail.