MY SUNDAY JOURNAL
By Dalton Roberts
IPS Feature
8-4-02

KINDS OF TOGETHERNESS

Mother died on this day in 1989 but I also have a letter from her, written while she and Dad were living in Miami. She spoke of the good times she was having with Aunt Ruth.

She wrote, "Ruth and I explore all the time – trees, flowers, birds in her yard, or we go to the ocean. We can sit and read for hours without realizing we are together. That's what I call friendship, when you can be together without getting on each other's nerves, enjoy silent togetherness or talking togetherness or exploring togetherness."

This is the secret of successful marriages and friendships. I call it "compatible energy fields." We know from Kirlian photography and EEG brain wave testing that people can have compatible energy and even compatible brain waves. When you have that, treasure it.

I once saw a study where monks who meditate together develop compatible energy and brain waves. It's the sitting together in quiet, soulful fellowship that makes it happen. Like mother and Aunt Ruth, sitting by the ocean reading their books.

By the way, that day she caught a six pound bass! She and Dad also had "fishing togetherness."

See how a journal helps us keep in balance? On one page, I read about mother's last day on Earth. On another, I read about the great life she lived and the good times she had with books and bass and an aunt whose companionship she treasured so dearly.

SEPARATE BUT NOT APART

Right after the pages with all the sweet writings from mother about different kinds of togetherness, I found a quote from Elizabeth Foley that I love: "The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart."

Sometimes we share a belief system with someone, then find it doesn't work for us. We shift our beliefs and lose a friend. But sometimes we have a friend who sees we don't have to believe alike to find great joy and common values in each other.

We only lose a friend under these circumstance when that friend places a set of rock-hard beliefs above the umbilical heart relationship we have always had.

I went to a church college and when I left that church, a lot of my former friends fell out with me. An old boy from Mississippi, Bob Furniss, and I kept in touch no matter where life took us or how our beliefs changed. We had that soul connection that made little sets of beliefs pale in significance.

Our beliefs change all of our lives. When it happens to us, we will forever remain grateful to those friends who know we can grow separately without growing apart.