In today's world, what does it mean to be a friend?

What does it take to nurture that friendship?

"Friend" is one of those words - like love or dysfunction--that has suffered from overkill. In our western culture where everyone is our friend, we have rendered the word bloodless. We have enough expressions and euphemisms for friendship to make the head spin, and some folks have an address book chock full of friends, enough to fill the Queen Mary for cocktails, so go figure. Yet deep down we know that there are friends, and there are friends.

This much we know. Friendship is not acquired. It is made. It is a river that runs through our days. With choices weathered, rounded, seasoned, and fashioned in that river that runs through time and experience. Friendship is a process of movement. Creating and co-creating.

What keeps me from being a friend? (What is it that makes me enjoy his or her company one day, and push him or her away the next? Why is it that I find pleasure in the ebb and flow of one day, and seeds of resentment buried in the next?)

What allows me to be a better friend? (What will it take for me to pay attention, to listen, to be intentional?)

What are the ways we can celebrate this friendship? (We are asked to define our lives by our vocations, or possessions, or accomplishments. But never by our friendships. Well, we've got it backwards. It's the friends who surround, encircle and embrace us that tell us who we are.)