This Sunday’s readings: John 15:9-17

Reflections

I’ve got a new friend, all right. But what a gamble friendship is! Charlotte is fierce, brutal, scheming, bloodthirsty—everything I don’t like. How can I learn to like her, even though she is pretty and, of course, clever?
~ E.B. White, Charlotte’s Web

The man of knowledge must be able not only to love his enemies but also to hate his friends.
~ Friedrich Nietzsche, Philosopher

You want people to hold you to a high standard, because whenever you degenerate in the multiple ways you’re likely to, they will (metaphorically) whack you on the back of the head and say, ‘clue-up’! You are demeaning yourself and you’re less than what you could be … A true friend wants the best, for the best in you.
~ Jordan Peterson, Psychologist, Author, Speaker

The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.
~Bob Marley (1945-1981), Jamaican musician

In friendship…we think we have chosen our peers. In reality a few years’ difference in the dates of our births, a few more miles between certain houses, the choice of one university instead of another…the accident of a topic being raised or not raised at a first meeting–any of these chances might have kept us apart. But, for a Christian, there are, strictly speaking no chances. A secret master of ceremonies has been at work. Christ, who said to the disciples, “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you,” can truly say to every group of Christian friends, “Ye have not chosen one another but I have chosen you for one another.” The friendship is not a reward for our discriminating and good taste in finding one another out. It is the instrument by which God reveals to each of us the beauties of others.”
~ C.S. Lewis, The Four Loves