Accompaniment
This brings us to the final ideal of friendship. Friends accompany each other on the journey of life. The term accompaniment may have musical associations for you. These associations are actually quite relevant. One of my musician friends is an accompanist for recitalists. He tells me that the challenge the musical accompanist faces is not to lead or get in the road but to stay in close supportive contact with the person he is accompanying. The challenges in spiritual accompaniment are similar.
The first interactions between Jesus and his disciples recorded in Scripture were his invitations to join him on his journey. The wonderful thing about accepting this invitation was that he then accompanied them on their journey. This is what true friends do. They accompany each other on life’s journey.
Sometimes we are blessed with a friend who accompanies us for the whole of our life. Ruth and Naomi were blessed to be able to remain together, and one suspects that their friendship continued even after Ruth’s marriage to Boaz. At other times the period of accompaniment is shorter. David and Jonathan journeyed together for only a small portion of David’s life. But for however long they share friendship, true friends share enough of their separate journeys that these journeys become intertwined. Something that was separate becomes connected. My journey becomes our journey, and I am no longer alone.
Friends accompany each other by taking an active interest in each other’s journey. As noted previously, this places a particular priority on the inner dimensions of that journey. But because the soul is the whole person, friends are also interested in the external aspects of each other’s lives. Job frustrations, relationships with family members and other circumstances of life are shared and embraced with interest because true friends care for each other in their totality.
Because the accompaniment soul friends offer each other gives priority to the journey of the inner self, they can withstand physical separation. Even across the distance of times apart, friends can stay attuned to each other and continue to sense the flow of each other’s lives. Catching up occurs quickly and the connection seems never to have been interrupted. Accompaniment doesn’t require a great deal of actual time together.
The lives of friends intermingle, and the intimacy they experience often spreads across a number of spheres of experience. They become an important part of each other’s story because they share in important easy in each other’s life. That sharing forms an important strand in the cord of accompaniment that binds their lives together.
Wednesday, 7 November 2007
Ideals of Spiritual Friendship - Accompaniment
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2 comments:
I wonder how many people can see this as a reality, and how many people see this as an ideal. I think it's really possible to be such a friend to people, but it never depends on one party alone. It always depends on how the other person reciprocates. I'm glad I have such an experience with Roy, and I do hope God will continue to bless this friendship. Thanks for sharing such important information about friendship. All of them I have experienced to a certain degree and can agree that they are essential to a good friendship.
Giraffe
Its great that u read all the posts and hopefully learn things that would help u strengthen your friendship with your close friends.
Of course, every close friendship is different from another and in the end, its the Lord who holds the ppl together.
So whether hw much one can apply from reading all these pointers or whether they agree to wat extend, the most impt thing is that we value the close friends we have and seek to bless them unconditionally with watever we have.
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