More than twenty-five hundred years ago, Moses gave us the Ten Commandments. The centuries since, the Enlightenment notwithstanding, have yet to give us a single reason to doubt the validity and importance of any of those precepts. However, we struggle to live them out. Fr. Rolheiser offers these ten thoughts on befriending each other as a way to live out the commandments.
Befriend humanity: To be human is to be fallible, wounded, scarred, sinful, and living in a far-from-perfect history, body, family, and church. This is called the human condition. Make friends with it. Don’t live in a sulk.
Befriend what’s best in you: As long as we look out at the world through our wounds, we will always fill with self-pity, bitterness, and jealousy. If we look out through the prism of what’s best in us, our jealousy can turn to appreciation, and we can again be astonished at others’ goodness. We need to be better friends with what’s best in us.
Befriend those who love you: There are only two potential tragedies in life: To go through life and never love and to go through life and not express love and affection to those who love us. Thank those who love you for loving you. Never take their love for granted or as owed. Give out a lot more compliments. Say thank you constantly.
Befriend chastity: So much of our pain and restlessness comes from our lack of chastity, and much of our subsequent rationalization and bitterness come from not admitting this. We have sophisticated ourselves into unhappiness. Make a searing, honest confession soon.
Befriend your own body: Don’t be afraid of your own body, of its goodness, its sexuality, its pleasures, its tiredness, its limits. Befriend it. Don’t punish it, don’t spoil it, don’t denigrate it. It’s a church, a temple. Give it enough rest, enough exercise, enough discipline, and enough respect.
Befriend the other gender: The mothers and the fathers, the wives and the husbands are fighting. Small wonder the children are suffering. Never trivialize the issues of gender. Make friends with what seems most threatening to you in the other gender.
Befriend your father: Father hunger is one of the deepest hungers in the Western world today. Reconcile with your father, other fathers, and God the Father. Forgive him for his inadequacy. Acknowledge your hunger.
Befriend your mortality: Death comes to us all. Make friends with aging, wrinkles, grey hair, and a body that is no longer young. Accept, let go, grieve, and move on. Bless the young. Share your wisdom with them. Give away what’s left of your life.
Befriend humor: In our laughter, we taste transcendence. Humor takes us above the tragic. Laughter gives us wings to fly. Thomas More cracked a joke to the man who was about to behead him. That’s a quality of sanctity that we too often neglect.
Befriend your God: The gospel is not so much good advice as it is “good news,” it tells us how much God loves us and what God has already done for us. Peace comes to us when we can enjoy that favor. Befriend the God who tells us 365 times in scripture not to be afraid. Walk in that confidence.