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
