Friendship

As pastors, we spend a great deal of time sharing in the
ongoing lives and adventures of our congregants and community members. We are
also called, literally, to come to love and suffer with them when
disappointments, disasters or deaths occur.

Christians think differently about friendship. Our understanding is rooted in a God who never writes us out of the story of divine love—whatever our failings.

The deep attention and reverence that Thomas Merton and Abdul Aziz brought to each other's books, traditions and lives undergirded their friendship, and the frank way they explored their similarities and differences enlivened it.

Jesus and Peter care about each other enough to call each other out.