Good Morning Digital Neighbors! Happy Monday ADD Irregulars and all inhabitants of the Weird Shit Niche'. I thought I would share some quotes about friendship this week. Back in my seminary days I did a term paper on friendship and morality. It was a fun paper to research, especially since Paul Wadell built upon the ideas of Aristotle and Aquinas to explore friendship as the school of virtue. On to the quotes!!

The influence of each human being on others is a kind of immortality. - John Quincy Adams

I think of Paul Gilbert, one of my first childhood friends when we moved to Elsberry from St. Louis. I was four years old when we left the city for the countryside and the house on the lake. I was in the world of army men, old block Legos, various cartoons and bugs. Paul introduced me to dinosaurs and old movie monsters like Frankenstein and Dracula. I suppose I would have eventually discovered such things on my own, but it was great that Paul shared his enjoyment of them with me. He knew as much about dinosaurs as I knew about bugs. Going to the country exploded my interest in bugs and nature as a whole. It was a win-win on loving life and finding creation so amazing.

During junior high Paul moved away from Elsberry. I saw him in high school one time during the summer and have never seen him since. I can't see the old classic movie monsters or toy dinosaurs and wonder how he is doing, if he is doing or what path his life took.

Friendship that flows from the heart cannot be frozen by adversity, as the water that flows from the spring cannot congeal in winter. - James Fenimore Cooper

Friendships worth having are worth maintaining. Sounds so simple, and yet in our disposable world and ready to be offended culture, they can disappear quickly. You can't be friends with everyone, but to be friends with no one is to live in exile with someone insane, yourself. The absence of a voice other that your own is the making of all kinds of misfortune. "I don't need anyone." Very true, you may not need anyone, but you ought to desire someone to share the adventure of living.

Understanding, forgiveness, appreciated differences, curious discussion of ideas and disagreements without nullification, laughter, sorrow and the joy of discovery of whole worlds or experiences foreign and familiar can flourish in the garden of friendship. We know this, but the saying of things makes us more mindful and hopefully thankful. Happy Monday my friends.

Hot July sky - dunno who or where, but it is a beautiful scene.