love
&
friendship
are words of
people
telling
people
trust is
a word
for bankers
me & you
&
You
words
for
us.
These are the words from the introduction from Mary Hunt’s Introduction [the poem, rather] of Fierce Tenderness, an analysis concerning the feminist theology of friendship. This book has been incredibly helpful to think and reorder metaphors and symbols concerning relational dynamics and the functionality of friendships. As I consider the theology of friendship, I return to Hunt’s book and recall that not just any relationship is a friendship, but that honest and significant “efforts to love and be loved” may very well constitute friendship or qualify for a relationship of friendship.
I am learning, or rather re-learning, that in friendship, we are brought face to face with ourselves, with one another, and with the larger mysterious world whose gentle forces bring us into our being. Friendships are not always tender. In fact, they are sometimes quite difficult. Friendships are more than establishing “trust” or “ownership.” Its not even “owning” a person. Its about finding that intersection of safe intimacy and braiding together stories of goodness. That is the fierce tenderness of friendship.
Its my hope that my intimate friendships are rooted in generativity and justice–always seeking intentionality and goodness, loving always and never judging. Friendship: fierce and tender.
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