The Creative Power of Friendship

Friendship is unnecessary, like philosophy, like art…It has not survival value; rather it is one of those things that give value to survival. – C.S. Lewis

You can form a friendship anywhere you look. In the midst of a city, on a subway, waiting for a cup of coffee. Even on the edge of nowhere. That’s how it felt when we moved from a large Midwestern city to a town of two hundred if you counted the chickens and the dogs. 

Living in a little Podunk town taught me that friendship can be a creative act, requiring a magic alchemy of awareness, discernment and a willingness to connect. In connecting with another, one must move from reflection to motion, bringing together and presenting gifts of kindness and compassion that inspire and uplift. Richard Rohr, Director of the Center for Action and Contemplation, describes compassionate acts as “the greatest art form.

Hazel lived with her adult son Randy and rat terrier, Alex, across the gravel road from us. Her real age was unknown. She had celebrated her eightieth birthday two times since we were neighbors. The most remarkable thing about Hazel was her face. You couldn’t forget it, etched like a topographical map where the lines converged into long, winding rivers.

Hazel invited me inside one afternoon. I was pushing my daughter in a baby stroller on a cracked sidewalk that bordered her purple zinnias. She gave me a piece of homemade cherry pie, and we talked. Two or three times a week for two years, we visited Hazel. Each time, the old woman was welcoming, sometimes giving us some trinkets she had kept from her childhood, sometimes, baking her wonderful banana bread or her special raisin nut cookies with baby dolls frosted on top. Hazel loved to stitch, and she showed me how to embroider my daughter’s name on a soft pink blanket on a cold November morning.

It wasn’t until much later that I realized the depth of Hazel’s love that went into brightening the days for two people who were almost invisible in the closed off community. Her compassionate acts of kindness made what was a challenging time into one of goodness and a lasting friendship. We create ourselves through friendship, Maria Mitchell, the trailblazing astronomer said, refining ourselves through the relationships we foster. “Whatever our degree of friendship may be, we are more under their influence than we are aware,” she continued.

Hazel is testimony to realizing that we have it in our power to change the course of one’s life. Her abiding friendship to my daughter and me created a welcoming place in an unlikely part of the world. How today when I see a scraggly rat terrier, or a pink baby blanket, Hazel’s green eyes dance in front of me. – Becky Breed

Exercise for Living Creatively:

Celebrate those special friendships with acts of kindness. Reaching out and connecting in your own creative ways with those you love.

If you want more encouragement and inspiration in your creative life, see http://thewritingandcreativelife.com