"Condescend to all the weaknesses and infirmities of your fellow creatures, cover their frailties, love their excellencies, encourage their vitues, relieve their wants, rejoice in their prosperities, compassionate their distress, receive their frienship, overlook their unkindness, forgive their malice, be a servant of servants, and condescend to do the lowest offices to the lowest of mankind."-William Law
A friend of mine and I were talking last night about the importance of truly being a friend. I struggle with actually what it looks like and we discussed several important aspects of it. This quote above being the backbone of my beliefs, accessibililty and anticipating needs would be core values I believe encompase the essence of true friendship. Even in regards to seasonal friends the same values should still be applied. Accessibility to me is so key to being a friend- someone that you know you can get in touch with fairly quickly if you need them; someone you can rely on; someone you know is willing to drop less important (in an eternal mindset) things and come to your aid if need be. But, as my friend pointed out, you can be too accessbile to people. I think I've never realized that before until he said it last night. I think that's one of my biggest problems- I'm either unaccessible or too accessible. When I start out being friends with someone I'm all about helping and being useful. I'd do just about anything that person asks and I'm more than willing to overlook any misgivings or inconsistencies. But over time I think it's either because I take that person for granted or because I stop overlooking their errors (and who doesn't make them?) and I am less available and willing to that person. Maybe I'm admitting something to you that causes you to cringe because you haven't had this happen, (it's not this extreme!) but I think we forget how much love the savior has for us that we should be liberally applying to our friends. And this is no short list of people, but how do you love everyone equally, yet be allowed to have an inner-circle?
