speak friend and enter

friend was the magic word to open the locked door into the halls of moria. what a beautiful place it was too! the dwarves were master craftsmen with stone and rock and they built amazing halls. peter jackson didn't do too bad a job of bringing them to life either!

i'm realizing more and more, maybe because of age or wisdom or both or neither, i'm pickier when it comes to adding to my friend list. i've learned the last two years that simply saying friend is not enough to enter into a friendship. those sacred halls are more than a meeting place of people. they are home. to be in a friendship with someone implies that you feel at home with them.

i'm also learning rather quickly that it can change. you can feel at home with someone one season and not the next. what happens that makes it change so suddenly? truthfully, it's rarely sudden. most things take place gradually until you look up and their is a gulf between you. what started as a simple stream can eventually grow into a grand canyon. once the divide is there, it's really hard or impossible to bridge the space between you.

then there is the whole issue of how people behave once they've been invited into the hall. the orcs completely overran the halls of moria, killing the dwarves who called it home, making their beautiful halls dark and and stripping the place of it's former glory. the wrong friends will do that to you! you will look up and before you know it, your home is unrecognizable. they always say birds of a feather flock together. if you choose the wrong friends, it's not long before you become the company you keep. or they will overrun you so bad you will cease to exist.

i'm trying to figure out what my course of action should be right now. things have been different since february and as much as i wanted to deny it, the split began then. and from there it has gotten worse. now, i don't know how to build the bridge. my long time friend said let the chips fall where they may. i'm pondering. this could be a wait and see situation. sometimes, broken friendships have a way of working themselves out. other times, intention is required to bring resolution. after this weekend, i believe i will have more of an answer. someone else told me to seek god and follow his plan. now that's advice i could never argue with. so i'm waiting to see what happens, to see how god leads, to see if this friendship can be salvaged.