The distance – the node that makes a friendship stronger

It has been a long time since I last wrote, and its not that I want to excuse myself, but I really didn’t had much time.

Like I last said I am in mission with Heart’s Home, the french mouvement of friendship and compasion. I am in Senegal for almost 3 months now, and although the beginning was hard and not that pleasant, now I am adjusted and starting to like the country and its people.

Heart’s Home it’s not a mouvement where you can just give yourself to others, but also it’s the place where you can learn a lot for yourself, for your own life. The things you must face, the people you meet, everything we do together teach us “the school of life”. In Senegal, we are 8 young people in the house, from all over the world: I am Romanian, there is an Indian, a Senegalaise, 2 French people, one Argentinean, one Chillinese, and an Italian. Together we are trying to live our mission.

One of the things we do here is “Community and Liberation”, the school of Don Giussani, a priest who started this kind of school for the young people, who where desoriented after finishing their studies in the ‘60. In this meeting we choose a text (a spiritual text), we read it, once, twice, three times, we analisyed it and we comment it. And one of the texts talked about friendship, what it means a strong, good and true friendship. We all know in theory what a friendship means: listen to our friend, be there for him/her in need and in joy, communcation etc. But from my own experience, not all friendships “survive” in time. Am I right or not?

This text talks about the need of the distance for the growth of the relationship, and it says: “The distance and respect towards the other are the fundamental conditions of a friendship”. I love this sentence. And of course reading the text, I thought about my own friends, about the history I have with each and one of them. We were almost all the time together, making a lot of things: going out, going to the same university, studying together, eating the same lunch etc. And it was wonderful, we loved every single moment. But from time to time, one of us was isolating, she didn’t talk anymore, didn’t call, didn’t answer to her phone. I admit that I insisted a lot for her to talk with me, to share with me her pain or her difficult moment, but didn’t quite think that maybe she needs a moment just for herself, and beeing angry and disappointed I just left her. Not a good reaction. Instead of being patient and to pray, I prefered to be angry and to leave her alone. Of course after a while, we began to talk to each other, but not because I understood, but because I thought she would change.

This text talks about being friends in the same faith and hopes, believing in God and praying one for each other. I like the sound of that: “..and if the two of them share the same faith, if the pray one for each other, the faith and the prayer they can just make the friendship stronger and deeper, it can never make diminish it”, and it continues by saying: “If in a friendship, the two of them are always agreeing with each other, are always having the same preferences and are hating the same things, it will be just a monotony, even worst: the friendship will never be productive. And friendship, by its nature has two parts: the part where you give, and the part where you receive, it must bring fruits by exchanging the particularities, the differences.”

I remembered my friends, the fact that we are all so different, so special in our own way. And now that I am so far away from them, I can see the truth of this text. At the beginning I was saying and thinking that I will not be there for them in their need, I cannot help them anymore, and I also had the fear that they will slowly forget me, that we would not be friends anymore. Who can be friend with a person which is a million miles away, cannot talk very often, and it will rest there for more then a year? But after just 3 months, and especially after reading this, I must say I was all wrong to think all those things. My friends are writing me often, some of them are even sending me post cards, they are all supporting me, and we try to talk as much as we can. It’s nice to see that we are friends, so close friends, but we are walking in our own way, every own of us in its own direction, but together. We are all growing up so beautifully. I learned to love my friends as they are, wherever they are.

I will finish by saying THANKS to all of my friends, and see you soon. Big hugs from Africa!

P.S. The text is written by Adrienne von Spyre