Friends

Do you have friends?

Are you sure?

If you just won a lottery or wrote a book that got you on Oprah. I would bet you would have nothing less than 50 friends to take along on the trip all the way to chicago plus 30 more asking you if they could come along.
But please be honest if all around you was falling apart in the middle of a cold black night, how many people would picking the telephone bring near at that moment.

There are lots of people around us, but how many are with us?
I am all for friendship but they are not built over pop corns and sodas.
They are built when we choose to take hands and walk on a road no matter what comes.
They are built when we open our lives to one another not scared that we will be judged.
They are built when two parties realize their humaneness thoroughly and completely but choose to represent the grace of God to one another.
Friendship is beautiful, not because it will all be glossy from the outside but because if we choose to do the hard work of living deeply with one another, opening our lives even when we feel shame barging through,we will harvest and taste the sweetest fruit ever.
It's the result we get when we side step the phony 'Hello goodbye' of society and choose to see friendship actually as a bottomless blue sea instead of a ship or boat that takes us over the canal of what we want.

That's why it beautiful, that's why it's friendship.
We might play the safe game of choosing fans as friends, surrounding ourselves with those who call us superstars.
But do you have someone who would look into your face with pure honesty when you've missed it and tell you that you are out of your flipping mind?
People you can celebrate with and whose legs or dancing shoes aren't stuck in the mud of envy when it's time to dance for you?
Someone who doesn't mind the 2 am alarm call
Look through your house; are there mannequins or humans?

I would ask you once again

Do you have friends?