Long Lost Friends

Every so often, I redis­cover long lost friends. It is not that those friends drifted away from me, but it is always the case that I drifted away from them. I thought I would make a list of them to see if they are long lost friends of yours too.

Here they are: libraries, a good novel, sun­rises, sun­sets, stars, music, art, humor, qual­ity movies, good con­ver­sa­tions, uni­ver­sity cam­puses, a bicy­cle, com­fort­able ten­nis shoes, loose blue jeans, a pet, tall trees, desert scenes, and the sounds of the ocean. These friends are always there for us. How is it we trade them for tense pol­i­tics, social con­flicts, media spin, rude pun­dits, and demand­ing insti­tu­tions? Why do we trade down? Are we so eas­ily dis­tracted from quality?

Being “led beside still waters” can be both an image and a real­ity for those tak­ing the time to go find those still waters. Still­ness is one of those long lost friends too — not the sort of friend that makes hur­ried house calls. Nature is so ter­ri­bly sane. The arts can be so inspir­ing. Great ideas are com­fort­ing as well as chal­leng­ing. Why do we let the mag­nif­i­cent sym­phony of life become shal­low noise?

Going home to your friends may be a longer jour­ney than you might real­ize at first. Some­times you have to get there through your own labyrinth of self-created pain and con­fu­sion. In leav­ing the dark forests of your own shadow, there is great release. The sim­ple things in life mat­ter most. It is the con­trast of lost and found that brings the deep­est joys. Good friends wait patiently and wel­come you with open arms. They never left. Why did you?