I started a new group to study and practice the art and science of contemplation. I was able to choose what participants of the group would be called. I initially chose the term Practitioners. It is a term I picked up from meditation groups I was a part of when I was younger. I liked the term at the time because it emphasized that practice is central to well-being, which meditation is aimed at. It is also central to the spiritual life and to religious aims. I liked it because I was used to seeing a lot of emphasis on belief, but hardly any on practice. But, my own experience was that I needed to put into practice my beliefs in a way that they become interiorized and a living reality for me.
For instance, the Bible talks about peace a lot. But if I didn’t have interior peace how could I bring peace into the world? So, I realized I had to practice interior peace so that my life could be less dominated by stress, fear, frustration, and anger, and I would act out of these emotions less (which meant for me, acting from peace more).
So, to me, being a practitioner made a lot of sense.
But there is something that is missing to being a practitioner also. It misses the social and communal dimension of being human because it tends to focus on 1) self and 2) practice.
Another truth I learned along the Way is that it is not possible to grow in peace, hope, love, etc., alone. That doesn’t mean that healthy solitude isn’t essential to a life aimed at contemplation of God, but that to think that one can accomplish a life like that in isolation from others is a delusion.
In particular, a special type of relationship is essential to this type of growth, what Aristotle called “complete or true friendship.”
He distinguishes between friendships based in pleasure, friendships based in utility, or friendships based in the end of virtue, which is eudaemonia, translated as flourishing or happiness.
Sometimes we have friendships or relationships that are purely about pleasure. There is nothing wrong with this necessarily. It seems to be a part of life. Also, we may have friendships based on utility, like the neighbor I trust to ask to watch my place when I am gone. Again, this is necessary and normal.
But there is a type of friendship that has as its main purpose to support one another in attaining their highest good. This type of friendship, in the Aristotelian sense, is complete friendship or true friendship.
There is a special bond in this type of relationship. It doesn’t depend so much on finding pleasure in the other, or agreeing with the other, or that the other may be useful. Indeed the role of the other may be to challenge us! This is not the role of an enabler buddy who we go to the bar with to blow off some steam.
The Christian tradition picked up this concept of complete or true friendship from Aristotle and developed the concept of spiritual friendship. It was, again, aimed at the highest good, the divine reality, but orthodox Christians see the divine reality through the lens of Christ. So, the concept of spiritual friendship in Christianity is to support the other to realize the fullness of who they are in and through the image of Christ and the saints.
It may seem premature to refer to people you are meeting, perhaps, for the first time as complete or true friends. But, it makes more sense if you understand that the nature of this relationship is intentionally to support you in the realization of your highest human end or purpose.
That is what spiritual friendship is about.
We are in good company.
The Gospel of John reads,
I do not call you servants any longer… I have called you friends.
John 15:15