What is a Friend? - From the Heart, with John Willard
Channel: CNA TV - NAHCA Broadcasting Network
Date: 2020-01-21

WHAT IS A FRIEND?  From the Heart, with John Willard on CNA-TV

You can make more friends in two months by becoming really interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you said Dale Carnegie.

A man named Phillip W. Hopkins once found a copy of a lovely thought he discovered on the wall of his doctor’s office. It is called What is a Friend? And is attributed to C. Raymond Beran. 

Friends are people with whom you dare to be yourself. Your soul can be naked with them. They ask you to put on nothing. Only to be what you are. They do not want you to be better or worse. When you are with them, you feel like a prisoner feels who has been declared innocent. You do not have to be on your guard. You can say what you think, as long as it is genuinely you. Friends understand those contradictions in your nature that lead others to misjudge you. With them you breathe freely. You can avow your little vanities and envies and hates and vicious sparks, your meannesses and absurdities, and in opening them up to friends, they are lost, dissolved on the white ocean of their loyalty.

They understand. You do not have to be careful. You can abuse them, neglect them, tolerate them. Best of all, you can keep still with them. It does not matter. They like you. They understand. You can weep with them, sing with them, laugh with them, pray with them. Through it all- and underneath- they see, know, and love you.          

What is a friend? I repeat, One with whom you dare to be yourself.

 All of us would like to have old friends. But have you ever stopped to think that old friends are not made in a hurry? If you would like to have such friends in the years to come, you had better start making new friends now. Sturdy friends, like sturdy  beams, take time to season.

Go at this matter thoughtfully. Select persons you feel pretty sure could be the kind of friends you can prize in later years. Then start the gentle, gradual seasoning process.

How? Ralph Waldo Emerson gave us the answer. The only way to have a friend is to be a friend.

 The most precious thing anyone can have is the goodwill of others. It is something as fragile as an orchard and as beautiful; as precious as a gold nugget and as hard to find; as powerful as a great turbine and as hard to build; as wonderful as youth and as hard to keep.   

“A friend is a watch that beats true for all time and never runs down.” 

THE one who comes in when the whole world has gone out! 

One day a sophomore at Amherst College took a pair of shoes to be repaired to a shop run by a man named Jim Lucey. Lucey started a conversation with the shy young man and they became friends. The student stopped in frequently at the shop.

The student went on to become a lawyer and with the help of Jim Lucey he found an office in Northhampton, Mass-a-choo-setts, not far from Lucey’s shop. Their friendship grew and the young lawyer frequently dropped by the shop to talk to Lucey and other men who gathered there. He soon gained the  respect of the group and before long they began urging him to run for political office in Northhampton. A few years later, he was elected mayor. Then State legislature,  then Governor, then the Vice President, then the former Amherst student was sworn in to the highest office in the land.

Several years later, a mail carrier delivered a letter to Jim Lucey’s shoe shop in Northhampton. The old Shoemaker noticed that the return address on the envelope read, the White House, and his hands trembled as he opened it. There, on White House stationary, were these words:

My dear Mr. Lucey:

Not often do I see you or write to you, but I want you to know that if it were not for you I should not be here. I want to tell you how much I love you. Do not work too much now, and try to enjoy yourself in your well-earned hour of age.

Yours sincerely, 

Calvin Coolidge 

My closing thought-

Friendship is like a bank account. You can’t continue to draw on it without making deposits.

Well friends, the pups Cora Mae and Bubba are getting hungry so I’ll have to let you go.

As always you can reach me on Twitter @JohnWillard47

Until next time friends, this is John Willard-From the Farm!