Soul Friends

          A friend shared this article with me recently from Pathos: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/fareforward/2013/04/why-dont-we-talk-about-friendship-more/

While he just shared the article this past week, the topic is something that has been on my mind for quite a while - friendship.

In college I remember reading C.S. Lewis’s The Four Loves, in which Lewis expounded upon how each type of love is different from the others: erotic, friendship, human affection, and God’s love. Prior to reading this book, I had always told my close friends that I loved them, which caused some issues along the way because our culture does not readily identify deep friendships as a type of love. In the English language we are already at a disadvantage because love is a nebulas term - we love erotically, we love our family, but we also say that we love things and places, when we truly mean that we appreciate or like them. So it wasn’t hard to understand how telling some of my friends that I loved them, confused their significant others (especially my male friends with girl friends) - it was assumed that I meant that I loved them erotically, when really I was just trying to express the care of our friendship.

Culture does not help this platonic love debunking - especially when it comes to the movies. I enjoy romantic comedies as much as the next person, but recently while watching When Harry Met Sally, I became distressed that these type of movies often depict opposite sex friendships as simply the means to romantic love. One Day, Made of Honor, Post Grad, Carolina, Just Go with It, the list goes on and on. Honestly, I couldn’t think of a single movie where one or both of the main characters didn’t fall for the other. 

One of the key lines in When Harry Met Sally, paraphrased, is that men and women simply cannot be friends. Perhaps this is true if we only see friendship as a means to an end. But apart from that I disagree. I have close male friends. Friends that are so close that we are like family. Friends that are married, friends that are dating, and friends that are single. And I could never for the life of me understand why those friends who were dating had girlfriends that I saw me as a threat -I get it now, and I blame our misunderstanding of the love of friendship. 

In Spiritual Direction there is a term Anam Cara, which means soul friend. A soul friend is different then our concept of a soul mate. Its the person whom you can truly be yourself around. One who helps us better realize who we are in the eyes of God. There is an unconditional love that comes with being soul friends, as well as a sense of care and guiding. Many people don’t have soul friends, and that deeply saddens me, because they truly are a gift from God.

In American society we also struggle because in our individual mentalities we seem to vary in how we define friends and friendships. I have friends who claim to make new friends wherever they go, whereas I would call that acquaintances. I am just as guilty - we don’t like to tell someone they are an acquaintance, it seems rude, so we call them a friend. But even in such a scenario we need to realize that there are different types of friendships. The friendships that last a while why we are in a given situation. Friendships we can return to, even if we have not spoken in months and years. And soul friends. Those treasured few who you can truly bear your soul to all the time. Those who pray for you and stay in touch with you over extended periods. Those who are your chosen family. 

I encourage you to read the article above and consider who are your friends. Do you have such deep friendships in your life that they embody platonic love? Do you have soul friends - those whom you bear yourself totally to? How do you define love and friendship? All questions to consider in this ever changing world, when maybe what we truly need is a friend.