Women’s Friendship
Women’s Club of Sacred Heart Parish
Valley Park, MO
Fall, 2004
It’s good to be here this morning, with a group of women, to talk about women and friendship. As I look back on my life, some of my best moments are those that I spent with my women friends. This is not in any way to negate the importance my husband or my kids hold for me – they truly are the primary people in my life. They are the ones around whom my life revolves and with whom I find my raison d’etre – my reason to be. At the same time, however, one of the ironies of my life is that so often it’s the responsibilities I have for my husband and our kids that take the most energy out of me, and it’s the friendships I have with other women that give me the energy to keep going! Is this true for anyone else out there?
Which leads me to say that, truly, our friendships with other women are very, very special – they really are a gift from God. And so this morning, we’re going to spend a little time reflecting on the preciousness of our women friends and what they bring to us. I doubt that I am the only one in the room who can say with complete sincerity that I love my husband and I love my kids, but I also wouldn’t trade anything for the time I spend with my women friends.
In light of the recognition of the importance our friends have for us, I’d like to share with you all a story that a friend of mine emailed to me this past spring. Forgive me if you’ve already heard it, but I think it captures a bit of the truth of what we all know about our friendships with women. Here it goes:
A young wife sat on a sofa on a hot humid day, drinking iced tea and visiting with her Mother. As they talked about life, about the responsibilities of life and the obligations of adulthood, the mother clinked the ice cubes in her glass thoughtfully and turned a clear, sober glance upon her daughter.
“Don’t forget your girlfriends,” she advised, swirling the tea leaves to the bottom of her glass. “They’ll be more important as you get older. No
matter how much you love your husband, no matter how much you love the children you’ll have, you are still going to need girlfriends. Remember
to go places with them now and then; do things with them. And remember that”girlfriends” are not only your friends, but your sisters, your daughters,and other relatives too. You’ll need other women.
‘What a funny piece of advice,’ the young woman thought. ‘Haven’t I just gotten married? Haven’t I just joined the couple-world? I’m
now a woman, for goodness sake, a grownup, not a young girl who needsgirlfriends! Surely my husband and the family we’ll start will be all I
need to make my life worthwhile!’
But she listened to her Mother; she kept contact with her girlfriends and made more each year. As the years tumbled by, one after another, she
gradually came to understand that her Mom really knew what she was talking about.
As time and nature work their changes and their mysteries upon a woman, girlfriends are the mainstays of her life.
After 50 years of living in this world, here is what I know about girlfriends:
Girlfriends bring you casseroles and scrub your bathroom when you
need help.
Girlfriends keep your children and keep your secrets.
Girlfriends give advice when you ask for it. Sometimes you take it, sometimes you don’t.
Girlfriends don’t always tell you that you’re right, but they’re usually honest.
Girlfriends still love you, even when they don’t agree with your choices.
Girlfriends laugh with you, and you don’t need canned jokes to start the laughter.
Girlfriends pull you out of jams.
Girlfriends help you get out of bad relationships.Girlfriends help you look for a new apartment, help you pack, and help you move.
Girlfriends will give a party for your son or daughter when they get married or have a baby, in whichever order that comes!
Girlfriends are there for you, in an instant and when the hard times come.
Girlfriends listen when you lose a job or a friend.
Girlfriends listen when your children break your heart.
Girlfriends listen when your parents’ minds and bodies fail.
Girlfriends support you when the men in your life let you down.
Girlfriends rejoice at what makes you happy, and are ready to go and kill what makes you unhappy.
Times passes.
Life happens.
Distance separates.
Love waxes and wanes.
Hearts break.
Careers end.
Jobs come and go.
Parents die.
Colleagues forget favours.
Men don’t call when they say they will.
BUT girlfriends are there, no matter how much time and how many miles are between you.
Isn’t that so true? This little story is a reminder to me that no matter what else is going on in my life, I can count on my friends. They will be there for me, as surely as the sun rises and sets each day. Some of this has to do with, I think, the very nature of women – we seek to be in relationship with others, and without the companionship and nurturing of others you could say we women become like dry and withered grass. It is just part of our makeup to be in communion, in relationship, with others. A friend of mine was telling me about stopping at a park one day with her two year-old son so he could play. There was another woman in the park there with her child, and my friend says that within 5 minutes, the two women were talking to one another about fertility problems, whether the second woman should have another child or not because of her age, and so forth. Now you know that if it had been two men at the park with their kids, IF (and this is a big if!) they had gotten past saying hello to one another, the conversation would have revolved around the latest baseball game or maybe where each guy worked. Most likely two men, together in a park for 5 minutes, would never have gotten around to talking about something so intimate as childbearing and family planning. Am I right or am I right?
Somebody once said to me that in order to have a friend one has to be a good friend. We all know that’s true, don’t we? But I wonder, what do we need in order to be a friend? What are the primary ingredients we need to cultivate within ourselves in order to cultivate our friendships? I think first of all, we have to create a space within ourselves to accommodate another in order to be a good friend. What does it mean to create a space within ourselves? Well, I think the notion of creating a space within has practical as well as spiritual considerations. Practically speaking, we all know that we leave very little space in our hearts for others when our lives are too crowded with activities and busyness. Just as most of us would never attempt to throw a dinner party when we’re in the midst of moving and our house is cluttered with boxes, it is very difficult to foster good friendships with others when our lives are too cluttered with doing. We simply don’t have the time, do we?
And we all know that fostering good relationships, good friendships, takes time. If we are constantly rushing around from here to there, if our days are so crowded that we don’t even have time for a phone call to a friend much less lunch with that person, there is something wrong. And of course, ladies, this is the challenge in this day and age, isn’t it? We live in a world where we sometimes feel absolutely crushed by all the responsibilities we have. Unless you are independently wealthy and have the luxury of doing nothing all day long, most of us are out there working or taking care of our families or doing both. And if we are retired or no longer taking care of a family, chances are our children or our friends are be scattered to the four winds and so it is more challenging to keep up those relationships because of distance. It is very hard to create a space in our lives to cultivate our friendships, and the fact that we live is such a crazy and chaotic world means we need our friends even more! So do yourselves a favor, ladies, and continue to create a space in your lives for your friends, like you’re doing right now being a part of this women’s club.
The second primary ingredient to creating a space in our lives and in our hearts for our friends is, as I mentioned, of a spiritual nature. We create a space in our hearts for others when we allow them to shape our lives and we, in turn, shape theirs. Along those lines, Louise Bernikow says that female friendships that work are relationships in which women help each other to belong to themselves. But going back to this notion of creating a space within: We create a space for others when we cultivate a certain openness to them, when we don’t allow factors like different socioeconomic level or differing age to get in the way of our friendship. One of my dearest friends is 40 years older than me. We create a space for others in our hearts when we learn to accept them as they are. I have one particular friend who, on occasion, I have been tempted to “write off” because of things in her I found difficult to accept. But this same friend has also been there for me at a time in my life when I was really struggling, when I really needed support. We must never allow ourselves to limit the possibilities of what others have to give to us because our own hearts are too small and too confined.
Our own horizons, even our understanding of ourselves is broadened immeasurably by our friendships with others, especially our friendships with women. We are helped by others to see ourselves as they see us and we grow as a consequence. Has anyone heard of the personality inventory called the Enneagram? It is a way of describing people’s various personalities based on the number system 1-9. I was a bit chagrined one day when a friend told me I was a “1″ on the Enneagram – I wanted to be a “2″. But when I thought about the examples in my life she used to support her argument that I was a “1″, I knew she was right. Our friends know us better than we know ourselves sometimes.
From my friends, I have learned, for example, when I was working too hard and needed to slow down. I have learned the difference between being over-protective of a child and knowing when to coddle that child. My friends have affirmed what they see as my strengths and laughed with me at my many weaknesses. From my friends, I have learned when to give in on an issue with my husband, and when to stand firm. My friends have helped me to decide when a job is the right one for me, and when one isn’t. My friends always have my best interest in mind, even when I can’t see it for myself. My friends remind me to stop and smell the roses every once in a while, and sometimes they even bring me some. The people with whom I’ve been friends since childhood share a sense of history with me, and remind me of who I am and where I came from. And I have learned from my friends that women find it acceptable to criticize one another, but don’t you dare criticize their kids.
Friends help us to know we’re not alone in this world, and accept us for who we are, quirks and all. Edna Buchanan says that “true friends are those who really know you but love you anyway.” So it would seem that another primary ingredient in how to be a friend is the quality of honesty. With my friends, I never feel like I have to pretend to be something other than who I am, and what a relief that is! Last week, I was complaining to my next door neighbor, who is also a friend of mine, about the fact that I was going to have to go out and buy some pantyhose for a talk I was giving. I said to her, “I’m wearing this skirt that’s split up the back, you see, and I can’t get away with knee highs. Yuck, pantyhose!” My friend, who is most comfortable in bib overalls, understood completely and sympathized with me.
A problem that may have seemed insurmountable when faced alone, somehow seems less daunting when shared with a friend. When I had abnormal mammogram test results last year, all my friends knew about it and were there for me until I got the results of the second test, which showed that everything was OK. We all know of times and situations in our lives when just telling a friend about a problem made us feel better. The beauty of women friends is that they just listen to us, don’t they? When I share a difficulty with my husband, he immediately goes into problem solving mode and tries to find the quickest solution to whatever’s bugging me. He just doesn’t get it. “I don’t want you to solve the problem,” I’ll say to him, “I just want you to listen!” Sound familiar? This is a pretty big male-female difference, isn’t it – the tendency to problem-solve rather than listen. Do you think it has something to do with the male’s Y chromosone or something?
In all seriousness, though, when I think about, for me, what the most positive benefits of true friendship are, it is the fact that real friendships bring to us a lot of healing. When my sister responded compassionately rather than critically to a problem I was having, I felt validated and cared for, and this helped me to deal with my problem. When my friend Meredith was going through her divorce, her friends all rallied around her and helped her through as best they could. Now she is happily thriving in her single state, and she attributes her success at recovering from her divorce in part to the support of her friends. When my friend Kathy was having doubts about the level of her intelligence after finding out how hard graduate school really is, her friends pitched in with childcare for her whenever she had to study and she ended up graduating with honors.
As we gather this morning to celebrate friendship, I think it’s very appropriate that a women’s club should have the Sacred Heart of Jesus as a name for its parish. Because some of the qualities of the Sacred Heart – constancy and compassion – are qualities of true friendship as well. The Sacred Heart as symbol of the love of God is a fitting backdrop, I believe, for a discussion on friendship, because after all, our friendships with others are a form of love. Through our care and concern for others, through our friendships with others, we find out a little bit about God’s care and concern for us. In fact, you could say that we experience the love of God, in a very special way, through our friends.