” … genuine friendship leads to the destruction of self-love because it forgets itself in a sincere desire to do good to the other person.”

“To accept our brothers and sisters for what they are, within the bond of Christian friendship, is to leave them room to think and act as they wish, provided they keep within scriptural bounds. This is far from easy because we are all inclined to hold our opinions in lesser matters rather too strongly and, given opportunity, we tend to squeeze others into our own mould even in matters indifferent.”

“… our intimate friends are what they are to us because they are essentially like us in all that is morally important. We choose our friends, not by accident, but because their souls mirror ours and their minds vibrate in harmony with ours. Friendship begins as soon as this mutual harmony of hearts is felt …”

From The Thought of God, by Maurice Roberts, Banner of Truth Trust, Chapter 24, ‘Christian Friendships”.

This little ‘fable’ reminded me of some practical ways that we ‘make’ friendships…

It was then that a fox appeared…

“Come and play with me,” proposed the little prince. “I am so unhappy.”

“I cannot play with you,” the fox said. “I am not tamed.”

“Ah! Please excuse me,” said the little prince… “What does it mean – ‘tame’?”

“It is an act too often neglected,” said the fox. “It means to establish ties.”

“To establish ties?”

“Just that,” said the fox. “To me, you are still nothing more than a little boy who is just like a hundred thousand other little boys. And I have no need of you. And you, on your part, have no need of me. To you, I am nothing more than a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But if you tame me, then we shall need each other. To me, you will be unique in all the world…”

“I am beginning to understand,” said the little prince. “There is a flower… I think that she has tamed me…”

“My life is very monotonous,” the fox said. “I hunt chickens; men hunt me. All the chickens are just alike, and all the men are just alike. And, in consequence, I am a little bored. But if you tame me, it will be as if the sun came to shine on my life. I shall know the sound of a step that will be different from all the others. Other steps send me hurrying back underneath the ground. Yours will call me, like music, out of my burrow…”

“Please tame me,” he said.

“I want to, very much,” the little prince replied. “But I have not much time. I have friends to discover, and a great many things to understand.”

“One only understands the things one tames,” said the fox. “Men have no more time to understand anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship, and so men have no friends any more. If you want a friend, tame me…”

“What must I do to tame you?” asked the little prince.

“You must be very patient,” replied the fox. “First you will sit down at a little distance from me – like that – in the grass. I shall look at you out of the corner of my eye, and you will say nothing. Words are the source of misunderstanding. But you will sit closer to me every day…”

The next day the little prince came back.

“It would have been better to came back at the same hour,” said the fox. “If, for example, you (always) come at four o’clock in the afternoon, then at three o’clock, I shall begin to be happy. I shall feel happier and happier as the hour advances. At four o’clock, I shall already be worrying and jumping about. I shall show you how happy I am! But if you come at just any time, I shall never know at what hour my heart must be ready to greet you.”

So the little prince tamed the fox…

“Go look again at the roses,” said the fox. “You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back and say goodbye to me, and I shall make you a present of a secret.”

The little prince went away, to look again at the roses.

“You are not at all like my rose,” he said. “As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one…”

And the roses were very much embarrassed.

“You are beautiful, but you are empty,” the little prince continued. “One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looks just like you – the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses; because it is she that I have watered; because it is she that I have put under the glass globe; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.”

And he went back to meet the fox.

“Goodbye,” he said.

“Goodbye” said the fox. “And now here is my secret: It is only with the heart that one sees rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye.

“It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.
“Men have forgotten this truth,” said the fox. “But you must never forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose…”

“I am responsible for my rose,” the little prince repeated, so that he would be sure to remember. from The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupery

Practical advice on how to we make ‘kindred soul’ type friends:

· Patience; sit a little closer each day; words aren’t important, but actions are.
· Dependability and predictability; routines become meaningful rituals.
· Spend time together, even if you think the time is “wasted.”
· Take care of your rose; protect it; nurture it; it’s your responsibility.
· We can’t tame all the roses, all the foxes. We must choose the very few that we’re willing to commit to.