On friends

Easy at first, the language of friendship Is, as we soon discover, Very difficult to speak well, a tongue With no cognates, no resemblance To the galimatias of nursery and bedroom, Court rhyme or shepherd’s prose, And, unless often spoken, soon goes rusty. (W.H. Auden, “For Friends Only,” Collected Poems) This week our morning prayers have been led by Anna, our MTh student from Russia. For her theme, Anna chose to reflect on friendship. That seemed to reverberate with a number of us who sat in the circle. I guess especially in a place like IBTS, where most of us are away from families and familiar cultural contexts, we cannot…