friendship

• mortal may be known as friend of God

1:5.8Not­with­stand­ing that God is an eter­nal power, a ma­jes­tic pres­ence, a tran­scen­dent ideal, and a glo­ri­ous spirit, though he is all these and in­finitely more, nonethe­less, he is truly and ev­er­last­ingly a per­fect Cre­ator per­son­al­ity, a per­son who can “know and be known,” who can “love and be loved,” and one who can be­friend us; while you can be known, as other hu­mans have been known, as the friend of God. He is a real spirit and a spir­i­tual re­al­ity.

• making friends › moral affinity and spiritual harmony essential to

1:6.5Some de­gree of moral affin­ity and spir­i­tual har­mony is es­sen­tial to friend­ship be­tween two per­sons; a lov­ing per­son­al­ity can hardly re­veal him­self to a love­less per­son. Even to ap­proach the know­ing of a di­vine per­son­al­ity, all of man’s per­son­al­ity en­dow­ments must be wholly con­se­crated to the ef­fort; half­hearted, par­tial de­vo­tion will be un­avail­ing.

• concept of personality of Deity facilitates fellowship
• fellowship facilitated by Adjusters

1:7.1When Je­sus talked about “the liv­ing God,” he re­ferred to a per­sonal De­ity—the Fa­ther in heaven. The con­cept of the per­son­al­ity of De­ity fa­cil­i­tates fel­low­ship; it fa­vors in­tel­li­gent wor­ship; it pro­motes re­fresh­ing trust­ful­ness. In­ter­ac­tions can be had be­tween non­per­sonal things, but not fel­low­ship. The fel­low­ship re­la­tion of fa­ther and son, as be­tween God and man, can­not be en­joyed un­less both are per­sons. Only per­son­al­i­ties can com­mune with each other, al­beit this per­sonal com­mu­nion may be greatly fa­cil­i­tated by the pres­ence of just such an im­per­sonal en­tity as the Thought Ad­juster.

• God is most loving of all friends

3:1.4The crea­ture not only ex­ists in God, but God also lives in the crea­ture. “We know we dwell in him be­cause he lives in us; he has given us his spirit. This gift from the Par­a­dise Fa­ther is man’s in­sep­a­ra­ble com­pan­ion.” “He is the ever-pres­ent and all-per­vad­ing God.” “The spirit of the ev­er­last­ing Fa­ther is con­cealed in the mind of ev­ery mor­tal child.” “Man goes forth search­ing for a friend while that very friend lives within his own heart.” “The true God is not afar off; he is a part of us; his spirit speaks from within us.” “The Fa­ther lives in the child. God is al­ways with us. He is the guid­ing spirit of eter­nal des­tiny.”

• spirit gravity creates cohesiveness among persons, groups

7:1.6Spirit-grav­ity pull and re­sponse thereto op­er­ate not only on the uni­verse as a whole but also even be­tween in­di­vid­u­als and groups of in­di­vid­u­als. There is a spir­i­tual co­he­sive­ness among the spir­i­tual and spir­i­tized per­son­al­i­ties of any world, race, na­tion, or be­liev­ing group of in­di­vid­u­als. There is a di­rect at­trac­tive­ness of a spirit na­ture be­tween spir­i­tu­ally minded per­sons of like tastes and long­ings. The term kin­dred spir­its is not wholly a fig­ure of speech.

• creatures crave association

10:1.3Di­vine per­son­al­ity is not self-cen­tered; self-dis­tri­bu­tion and shar­ing of per­son­al­ity char­ac­ter­ize di­vine free­will self­hood. Crea­tures crave as­so­ci­a­tion with other per­sonal crea­tures; Cre­ators are moved to share di­vin­ity with their uni­verse chil­dren; the per­son­al­ity of the In­fi­nite is dis­closed as the Uni­ver­sal Fa­ther, who shares re­al­ity of be­ing and equal­ity of self with two co-or­di­nate per­son­al­i­ties, the Eter­nal Son and the Con­joint Ac­tor.

• making friends › one cannot know a person from a single contact

12:9.2Love is the se­cret of ben­e­fi­cial as­so­ci­a­tion be­tween per­son­al­i­ties. You can­not re­ally know a per­son as the re­sult of a sin­gle con­tact. You can­not ap­pre­ci­at­ingly know mu­sic through math­e­mat­i­cal de­duc­tion, even though mu­sic is a form of math­e­mat­i­cal rhythm. The num­ber as­signed to a tele­phone sub­scriber does not in any man­ner iden­tify the per­son­al­ity of that sub­scriber or sig­nify any­thing con­cern­ing his char­ac­ter.

• cosmic mind explains kindred spirits

16:6.3The fact of the cos­mic mind ex­plains the kin­ship of var­i­ous types of hu­man and super­hu­man minds. Not only are kin­dred spir­its at­tracted to each other, but kin­dred minds are also very fra­ter­nal and in­clined to­wards co-op­er­a­tion the one with the other. Hu­man minds are some­times ob­served to be run­ning in chan­nels of as­ton­ish­ing sim­i­lar­ity and in­ex­pli­ca­ble agree­ment.

• friends sometimes work together in the afterlife

22:2.6I am a Mighty Mes­sen­ger, and it may in­ter­est Uran­tians to know that the com­pan­ion and as­so­ciate of my mor­tal ex­pe­ri­ence was also tri­umphant in the great test, and that, though we were many times and for long pe­ri­ods sep­a­rated in the age­long in­ward as­cent to Ha­vona, we were em­braced in the same seven-hun­dred-thou­sand group, and that we spent our time pass­ing through Vicegering­ton in close and lov­ing as­so­ci­a­tion. We were fi­nally com­mis­sioned and to­gether as­signed to Uversa of Or­von­ton, and we are of­ten dis­patched in com­pany for the ex­e­cu­tion of as­sign­ments re­quir­ing the ser­vices of two Mes­sen­gers.

• not good for man to be alone

25:8.4Mor­tals come from races that are very so­cial. The Cre­ators well know that it is “not good for man to be alone,” and pro­vi­sion is ac­cord­ingly made for com­pan­ion­ship, even on Par­a­dise.

• friends sometimes work together in the afterlife

25:8.5If you, as an as­cen­dant mor­tal, should reach Par­a­dise in the com­pany of the com­pan­ion or close as­so­ciate of your earthly ca­reer, or if your se­raphic guard­ian of des­tiny should chance to ar­rive with you or were wait­ing for you, then no per­ma­nent com­pan­ion would be as­signed you. But if you ar­rive alone, a com­pan­ion will cer­tainly wel­come you as you awaken on the Isle of Light from the ter­mi­nal sleep of time. Even if it is known that you will be ac­com­pa­nied by some­one of as­cen­dant as­so­ci­a­tion, tem­po­rary com­pan­ions will be des­ig­nated to wel­come you to the eter­nal shores and to es­cort you to the reser­va­tion made ready for the re­cep­tion of you and your as­so­ciates. You may be cer­tain of be­ing warmly wel­comed when you ex­pe­ri­ence the res­ur­rec­tion into eter­nity on the ev­er­last­ing shores of Par­a­dise.

25:8.6Re­cep­tion com­pan­ions are as­signed dur­ing the ter­mi­nal days of the as­cend­ers’ so­journ on the last cir­cuit of Ha­vona, and they care­fully ex­am­ine the rec­ords of mor­tal ori­gin and event­ful as­cent through the worlds of space and the cir­cles of Ha­vona. When they greet the mor­tals of time, they are al­ready well versed in the ca­reers of these ar­riv­ing pil­grims and im­me­di­ately prove to be sym­pa­thetic and in­trigu­ing com­pan­ions.

25:8.7Dur­ing your pre­fi­naliter so­journ on Par­a­dise, if for any rea­son you should be tem­porar­ily sep­a­rated from your as­so­ciate of the as­cend­ing ca­reer—mor­tal or se­raphic—a Par­a­dise Com­pan­ion would be forth­with as­signed for coun­sel and com­pan­ion­ship. When once as­signed to an as­cen­dant mor­tal of soli­tary res­i­dence on Par­a­dise, the com­pan­ion re­mains with this per­son un­til he ei­ther is re­joined by his as­cen­dant as­so­ciates or is duly mus­tered into the Corps of the Fi­nal­ity.

• friends sometimes work together in the afterlife

25:8.11But not so with two closely as­so­ci­ated mor­tal as­cend­ers: If one at­tains God while the other tem­porar­ily fails, the suc­cess­ful in­di­vid­ual in­vari­ably chooses to go back to the evo­lu­tion­ary cre­ations with the dis­ap­pointed per­son­al­ity, but this is not per­mit­ted. In­stead, a call is made to the re­serves of the Par­a­dise Com­pan­ions, and one of the vol­un­teers is se­lected to ac­com­pany the dis­ap­pointed pil­grim. A vol­un­teer Par­a­dise Cit­i­zen then be­comes as­so­ci­ated with the suc­cess­ful mor­tal, who tar­ries on the cen­tral Isle await­ing the Ha­vona re­turn of the de­feated com­rade and in the mean­time teaches in cer­tain Par­a­dise schools, pre­sent­ing the ad­ven­tur­ous story of the evo­lu­tion­ary as­cent.

• making friends › enrich souls by pooling respective spiritual possessions

27:3.4All these ce­les­tial com­pan­ion­ships are in­vari­ably mu­tual. As as­cend­ing mor­tals you not only de­rive ben­e­fit from these suc­ces­sive uni­verse com­pan­ions and such nu­mer­ous or­ders of in­creas­ingly di­vine as­so­ciates, but you also im­part to each of these fra­ter­nal be­ings some­thing from your own per­son­al­ity and ex­pe­ri­ence which for­ever makes ev­ery one of them dif­fer­ent and bet­ter for hav­ing been as­so­ci­ated with an as­cend­ing mor­tal from the evo­lu­tion­ary worlds of time and space.

• higher we ascend, lonelier we are without our fellows

28:5.14These are the an­gels who fos­ter and pro­mote the team­work of all Or­von­ton. One of the most im­por­tant lessons to be learned dur­ing your mor­tal ca­reer is team­work. The spheres of per­fec­tion are manned by those who have mas­tered this art of work­ing with other be­ings. Few are the du­ties in the uni­verse for the lone ser­vant. The higher you as­cend, the more lonely you be­come when tem­porar­ily with­out the as­so­ci­a­tion of your fel­lows.

• Havona arrivals look up old friends

30:4.28The first act of your Ha­vona ca­reer will be to rec­og­nize and thank your trans­port se­con­a­phim for the long and safe jour­ney. Then you are pre­sented to those be­ings who will spon­sor your early Ha­vona ac­tiv­i­ties. Next you go to reg­is­ter your ar­rival and pre­pare your mes­sage of thanks­giv­ing and ado­ra­tion for dis­patch to the Cre­ator Son of your lo­cal uni­verse, the uni­verse Fa­ther who made pos­si­ble your son­ship ca­reer. This con­cludes the for­mal­i­ties of the Ha­vona ar­rival; where­upon you are ac­corded a long pe­riod of leisure for free ob­ser­va­tion, and this af­fords op­por­tu­nity for look­ing up your friends, fel­lows, and as­so­ciates of the long as­cen­sion ex­pe­ri­ence. You may also con­sult the broad­casts to as­cer­tain who of your fel­low pil­grims have de­parted for Ha­vona since the time of your leav­ing Uversa.

• friends sometimes work together in the afterlife

39:3.5So­cial ar­chi­tects do ev­ery­thing within their prov­ince and power to bring to­gether suit­able in­di­vid­u­als that they may con­sti­tute ef­fi­cient and agree­able work­ing groups on earth; and some­times such groups have found them­selves re­as­so­ci­ated on the man­sion worlds for con­tin­ued fruit­ful ser­vice. But not al­ways do these ser­a­phim at­tain their ends; not al­ways are they able to bring to­gether those who would form the most ideal group to achieve a given pur­pose or to ac­com­plish a cer­tain task; un­der these con­di­tions they must uti­lize the best of the ma­te­rial avail­able.

• ascenders never lose power to recognize former associates

44:0.18There is also here with me a Mighty Mes­sen­ger from Uversa, an as­cen­dant Ad­juster-fused, one­time mor­tal be­ing, and he per­ceives you as you are, and at the same time he vi­su­al­izes the Soli­tary Mes­sen­ger, the super­na­phim, and other ce­les­tial be­ings pres­ent. Never in your long as­cen­dancy will you lose the power to rec­og­nize your as­so­ciates of for­mer ex­is­tences. Al­ways, as you as­cend in­ward in the scale of life, will you re­tain the abil­ity to rec­og­nize and frat­er­nize with the fel­low be­ings of your pre­vi­ous and lower lev­els of ex­pe­ri­ence. Each new trans­la­tion or res­ur­rec­tion will add one more group of spirit be­ings to your vi­sion range with­out in the least de­priv­ing you of the abil­ity to rec­og­nize your friends and fel­lows of for­mer es­tates.

• historically › saliva exchange, blood drinking were seals of

66:5.22These guard­i­ans of health also sought to in­tro­duce hand­shak­ing in sub­sti­tu­tion for saliva ex­change or blood drink­ing as a seal of per­sonal friend­ship and as a to­ken of group loy­alty. But when out from un­der the com­pelling pres­sure of the teach­ings of their su­pe­rior lead­ers, these prim­i­tive peo­ples were not slow in re­vert­ing to their for­mer health-de­stroy­ing and dis­ease-breed­ing prac­tices of ig­no­rance and su­per­sti­tion.

• betrayal and disloyalty to friends is most destructive of personality status

67:1.3In all the ad­min­is­tra­tive work of a lo­cal uni­verse no high trust is deemed more sa­cred than that re­posed in a Plan­e­tary Prince who as­sumes re­spon­si­bil­ity for the wel­fare and guid­ance of the evolv­ing mor­tals on a newly in­hab­ited world. And of all forms of evil, none are more de­struc­tive of per­son­al­ity sta­tus than be­trayal of trust and dis­loy­alty to one’s con­fid­ing friends. In com­mit­ting this de­lib­er­ate sin, Cali­gas­tia so com­pletely dis­torted his per­son­al­ity that his mind has never since been able fully to re­gain its equi­lib­rium.

• historically › ancient idea meant adoption into clan

70:3.6In the early ages each tribe was sur­rounded by con­cen­tric cir­cles of in­creas­ing fear and sus­pi­cion; hence it was once the cus­tom to kill all strangers, later on, to en­slave them. The old idea of friend­ship meant adop­tion into the clan; and clan mem­ber­ship was be­lieved to sur­vive death—one of the ear­li­est con­cepts of eter­nal life.

• historically › ancient idea meant adoption into clan

70:3.9“Guest friend­ship” was a re­la­tion of tem­po­rary hos­pi­tal­ity. When vis­it­ing guests de­parted, a dish would be bro­ken in half, one piece be­ing given the de­part­ing friend so that it would serve as a suit­able in­tro­duc­tion for a third party who might ar­rive on a later visit. It was cus­tom­ary for guests to pay their way by telling tales of their trav­els and ad­ven­tures. The sto­ry­tellers of olden times be­came so pop­u­lar that the mores even­tu­ally for­bade their func­tion­ing dur­ing ei­ther the hunt­ing or har­vest sea­sons.

• making friends › daily prayer quickest way to overcome habit of criticizing friends

91:5.3If you truly de­sire to over­come the habit of crit­i­ciz­ing some friend, the quick­est and surest way of achiev­ing such a change of at­ti­tude is to es­tab­lish the habit of pray­ing for that per­son ev­ery day of your life. But the so­cial reper­cus­sions of such prayers are de­pen­dent largely on two con­di­tions:

91:5.41. The per­son who is prayed for should know that he is be­ing prayed for.

91:5.52. The per­son who prays should come into in­ti­mate so­cial con­tact with the per­son for whom he is pray­ing.

• nourish religion by loyal fellowship

99:3.7The great weak­ness of all this un­rec­og­nized and un­con­scious type of re­li­gious ac­tiv­ity is that it is un­able to profit from open re­li­gious crit­i­cism and thereby at­tain to prof­itable lev­els of self-cor­rec­tion. It is a fact that re­li­gion does not grow un­less it is dis­ci­plined by con­struc­tive crit­i­cism, am­pli­fied by phi­los­o­phy, pu­ri­fied by sci­ence, and nour­ished by loyal fel­low­ship.

• nourish religion by loyal fellowship

99:3.123. Cre­ative, com­fort­ing, and love-ex­pand­ing fel­low­ships.

• all live religions encourage f.

99:6.2There is a real pur­pose in the so­cial­iza­tion of re­li­gion. It is the pur­pose of group re­li­gious ac­tiv­i­ties to dra­ma­tize the loy­al­ties of re­li­gion; to mag­nify the lures of truth, beauty, and good­ness; to fos­ter the at­trac­tions of su­preme val­ues; to en­hance the ser­vice of un­selfish fel­low­ship; to glo­rify the po­ten­tials of fam­ily life; to pro­mote re­li­gious ed­u­ca­tion; to pro­vide wise coun­sel and spir­i­tual guid­ance; and to en­cour­age group wor­ship. And all live re­li­gions en­cour­age hu­man friend­ship, con­serve moral­ity, pro­mote neigh­bor­hood wel­fare, and fa­cil­i­tate the spread of the es­sen­tial gospel of their re­spec­tive mes­sages of eter­nal sal­va­tion.

• God is most loving of all friends

102:7.10Of God, the most in­es­cap­able of all pres­ences, the most real of all facts, the most liv­ing of all truths, the most lov­ing of all friends, and the most di­vine of all val­ues, we have the right to be the most cer­tain of all uni­verse ex­pe­ri­ences.

• ascenders never lose power to recognize former associates

112:5.22The Thought Ad­juster will re­call and re­hearse for you only those mem­o­ries and ex­pe­ri­ences which are a part of, and es­sen­tial to, your uni­verse ca­reer. If the Ad­juster has been a part­ner in the evo­lu­tion of aught in the hu­man mind, then will these worth-while ex­pe­ri­ences sur­vive in the eter­nal con­scious­ness of the Ad­juster. But much of your past life and its mem­o­ries, hav­ing nei­ther spir­i­tual mean­ing nor mor­ontia value, will per­ish with the ma­te­rial brain; much of ma­te­rial ex­pe­ri­ence will pass away as one­time scaf­fold­ing which, hav­ing bridged you over to the mor­ontia level, no longer serves a pur­pose in the uni­verse. But per­son­al­ity and the re­la­tion­ships be­tween per­son­al­i­ties are never scaf­fold­ing; mor­tal mem­ory of per­son­al­ity re­la­tion­ships has cos­mic value and will per­sist. On the man­sion worlds you will know and be known, and more, you will re­mem­ber, and be re­mem­bered by, your one­time as­so­ciates in the short but in­trigu­ing life on Uran­tia.

• making friends › the more we bestow ourselves, the more we love

129:0.2The Son of Man had now made ev­ery prepa­ra­tion for de­tach­ing him­self per­ma­nently from the Naz­a­reth home; and this was not easy for him to do. Je­sus nat­u­rally loved his peo­ple; he loved his fam­ily, and this nat­u­ral af­fec­tion had been tremen­dously aug­mented by his ex­traor­di­nary de­vo­tion to them. The more fully we be­stow our­selves upon our fel­lows, the more we come to love them; and since Je­sus had given him­self so fully to his fam­ily, he loved them with a great and fer­vent af­fec­tion.

• making friends › Jesus seldom gave advice unless asked for

129:1.9At the Ca­per­naum syn­a­gogue he found many new books in the li­brary chests, and he spent at least five evenings a week at in­tense study. One evening he de­voted to so­cial life with the older folks, and one evening he spent with the young peo­ple. There was some­thing gra­cious and in­spir­ing about the per­son­al­ity of Je­sus which in­vari­ably at­tracted young peo­ple. He al­ways made them feel at ease in his pres­ence. Per­haps his great se­cret in get­ting along with them con­sisted in the two­fold fact that he was al­ways in­ter­ested in what they were do­ing, while he sel­dom of­fered them ad­vice un­less they asked for it.

• making friends › how to make friends

130:7.2When Ga­nid in­quired what one could do to make friends, hav­ing no­ticed that the ma­jor­ity of per­sons whom they chanced to meet were at­tracted to Je­sus, his teacher said: “Be­come in­ter­ested in your fel­lows; learn how to love them and watch for the op­por­tu­nity to do some­thing for them which you are sure they want done,” and then he quoted the olden Jew­ish proverb—“A man who would have friends must show him­self friendly.”

• making friends › Jesus seldom gave advice unless asked for

132:5.2But the rich man was not fully sat­is­fied with Je­sus’ an­swer. He made bold to ask again: “But what do you think a man in my po­si­tion should do with his wealth? Should I keep it, or should I give it away?” And when Je­sus per­ceived that he re­ally de­sired to know more of the truth about his loy­alty to God and his duty to men, he fur­ther an­swered: “My good friend, I dis­cern that you are a sin­cere seeker af­ter wis­dom and an hon­est lover of truth; there­fore am I minded to lay be­fore you my view of the so­lu­tion of your prob­lems hav­ing to do with the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of wealth. I do this be­cause you have asked for my coun­sel, and in giv­ing you this ad­vice, I am not con­cerned with the wealth of any other rich man; I am of­fer­ing ad­vice only to you and for your per­sonal guid­ance. If you hon­estly de­sire to re­gard your wealth as a trust, if you re­ally wish to be­come a wise and ef­fi­cient stew­ard of your ac­cu­mu­lated wealth, then would I coun­sel you to make the fol­low­ing anal­y­sis of the sources of your riches: Ask your­self, and do your best to find the hon­est an­swer, whence came this wealth? And as a help in the study of the sources of your great for­tune, I would sug­gest that you bear in mind the fol­low­ing ten dif­fer­ent meth­ods of amass­ing ma­te­rial wealth:

• making friends › Jesus seldom gave advice unless asked for

132:5.14Af­ter dis­cussing these mat­ters for sev­eral hours and in re­sponse to the rich man’s re­quest for fur­ther and more de­tailed in­struc­tion, Je­sus went on to am­plify his ad­vice, in sub­stance say­ing: “While I of­fer fur­ther sug­ges­tions con­cern­ing your at­ti­tude to­ward wealth, I would ad­mon­ish you to re­ceive my coun­sel as given only to you and for your per­sonal guid­ance. I speak only for my­self and to you as an in­quir­ing friend. I ad­jure you not to be­come a dic­ta­tor as to how other rich men shall re­gard their wealth. I would ad­vise you:

• historically › personal loyalty held apostles to Jesus, not his teachings

137:7.2Through­out these four months these seven be­liev­ers, one his own brother in the flesh, were get­ting ac­quainted with Je­sus; they were get­ting used to the idea of liv­ing with this God-man. Though they called him Rabbi, they were learn­ing not to be afraid of him. Je­sus pos­sessed that match­less grace of per­son­al­ity which en­abled him so to live among them that they were not dis­mayed by his di­vin­ity. They found it re­ally easy to be “friends with God,” God in­car­nate in the like­ness of mor­tal flesh. This time of wait­ing severely tested the en­tire group of be­liev­ers. Noth­ing, ab­so­lutely noth­ing, mirac­u­lous hap­pened. Day by day they went about their or­di­nary work, while night af­ter night they sat at Je­sus’ feet. And they were held to­gether by his match­less per­son­al­ity and by the gra­cious words which he spoke to them evening upon evening.

• historically › personal loyalty held apostles to Jesus, not his teachings

138:7.3Je­sus now re­counted for them the com­ing of John, the bap­tism in the Jor­dan, the mar­riage feast at Cana, the re­cent choos­ing of the six, and the with­drawal from them of his own broth­ers in the flesh, and warned them that the en­emy of the king­dom would seek also to draw them away. Af­ter this short but earnest talk the apos­tles all arose, un­der Pe­ter’s lead­er­ship, to de­clare their undy­ing de­vo­tion to their Mas­ter and to pledge their unswerv­ing loy­alty to the king­dom, as Thomas ex­pressed it, “To this com­ing king­dom, no mat­ter what it is and even if I do not fully un­der­stand it.” They all truly be­lieved in Je­sus, even though they did not fully com­pre­hend his teach­ing.

• historically › personal loyalty held apostles to Jesus, not his teachings

138:9.1This some­what monotonous pe­riod of al­ter­nate fish­ing and per­sonal work proved to be a gru­el­ing ex­pe­ri­ence for the twelve apos­tles, but they en­dured the test. With all of their grum­blings, doubts, and tran­sient dis­sat­is­fac­tions they re­mained true to their vows of de­vo­tion and loy­alty to the Mas­ter. It was their per­sonal as­so­ci­a­tion with Je­sus dur­ing these months of test­ing that so en­deared him to them that they all (save Ju­das Is­car­iot) re­mained loyal and true to him even in the dark hours of the trial and cru­ci­fix­ion. Real men sim­ply could not ac­tu­ally desert a revered teacher who had lived so close to them and had been so de­voted to them as had Je­sus. Through the dark hours of the Mas­ter’s death, in the hearts of these apos­tles all rea­son, judg­ment, and logic were set aside in def­er­ence to just one ex­traor­di­nary hu­man emo­tion—the su­preme sen­ti­ment of friend­ship-loy­alty. These five months of work with Je­sus led these apos­tles, each one of them, to re­gard him as the best friend he had in all the world. And it was this hu­man sen­ti­ment, and not his su­perb teach­ings or mar­velous do­ings, that held them to­gether un­til af­ter the res­ur­rec­tion and the re­newal of the procla­ma­tion of the gospel of the king­dom.

• historically › Thomas unwisely left his friends to grieve in solitude

139:8.10Thomas had some very bad days; he was blue and down­cast at times. The loss of his twin sis­ter when he was nine years old had oc­ca­sioned him much youth­ful sor­row and had added to his tem­per­a­men­tal prob­lems of later life. When Thomas would be­come de­spon­dent, some­times it was Na­than­iel who helped him to re­cover, some­times Pe­ter, and not in­fre­quently one of the Al­pheus twins. When he was most de­pressed, un­for­tu­nately he al­ways tried to avoid com­ing in di­rect con­tact with Je­sus. But the Mas­ter knew all about this and had an un­der­stand­ing sym­pa­thy for his apos­tle when he was thus af­flicted with de­pres­sion and ha­rassed by doubts.

139:8.11Some­times Thomas would get per­mis­sion from An­drew to go off by him­self for a day or two. But he soon learned that such a course was not wise; he early found that it was best, when he was down­hearted, to stick close to his work and to re­main near his as­so­ciates. But no mat­ter what hap­pened in his emo­tional life, he kept right on be­ing an apos­tle. When the time ac­tu­ally came to move for­ward, it was al­ways Thomas who said, “Let’s go!”

• historically › personal loyalty held apostles to Jesus, not his teachings

143:4.3The an­tag­o­nisms be­tween the Jews and the Samar­i­tans were time-hon­ored and his­toric; in­creas­ingly since the days of Alexan­der they had had no deal­ings with each other. The twelve apos­tles were not averse to preach­ing in the Greek and other gen­tile cities of the De­capo­lis and Syria, but it was a se­vere test of their loy­alty to the Mas­ter when he said, “Let us go into Samaria.” But in the year and more they had been with Je­sus, they had de­vel­oped a form of per­sonal loy­alty which tran­scended even their faith in his teach­ings and their prej­u­dices against the Samar­i­tans.

• historically › personal loyalty held apostles to Jesus, not his teachings

144:1.1As time passed, the twelve be­came more de­voted to Je­sus and in­creas­ingly com­mit­ted to the work of the king­dom. Their de­vo­tion was in large part a mat­ter of per­sonal loy­alty. They did not grasp his many-sided teach­ing; they did not fully com­pre­hend the na­ture of Je­sus or the sig­nif­i­cance of his be­stowal on earth.

• forsake not an old friend

147:7.3Then the Mas­ter pro­ceeded to warn his hear­ers against en­ter­tain­ing the no­tion that all olden teach­ing should be re­placed en­tirely by new doc­trines. Said Je­sus: “That which is old and also true must abide. Like­wise, that which is new but false must be re­jected. But that which is new and also true, have the faith and cour­age to ac­cept. Re­mem­ber it is writ­ten: ‘For­sake not an old friend, for the new is not com­pa­ra­ble to him. As new wine, so is a new friend; if it be­comes old, you shall drink it with glad­ness.’”

• with God is gospel

159:3.9In preach­ing the gospel of the king­dom, you are sim­ply teach­ing friend­ship with God. And this fel­low­ship will ap­peal alike to men and women in that both will find that which most truly sat­is­fies their char­ac­ter­is­tic long­ings and ide­als. Tell my chil­dren that I am not only ten­der of their feel­ings and pa­tient with their frail­ties, but that I am also ruth­less with sin and in­tol­er­ant of in­iq­uity. I am in­deed meek and hum­ble in the pres­ence of my Fa­ther, but I am equally and re­lent­lessly in­ex­orable where there is de­lib­er­ate evil-do­ing and sin­ful re­bel­lion against the will of my Fa­ther in heaven.

• historically › Rodan on f.

160:2.5These as­so­ci­a­tions of friend­ship and mu­tual af­fec­tion are so­cial­iz­ing and en­nobling be­cause they en­cour­age and fa­cil­i­tate the fol­low­ing es­sen­tial fac­tors of the higher lev­els of the art of liv­ing:

160:2.61. Mu­tual self-ex­pres­sion and self-un­der­stand­ing. Many no­ble hu­man im­pulses die be­cause there is no one to hear their ex­pres­sion. Truly, it is not good for man to be alone. Some de­gree of rec­og­ni­tion and a cer­tain amount of ap­pre­ci­a­tion are es­sen­tial to the de­vel­op­ment of hu­man char­ac­ter. With­out the gen­uine love of a home, no child can achieve the full de­vel­op­ment of nor­mal char­ac­ter. Char­ac­ter is some­thing more than mere mind and morals. Of all so­cial re­la­tions cal­cu­lated to de­velop char­ac­ter, the most ef­fec­tive and ideal is the af­fec­tion­ate and un­der­stand­ing friend­ship of man and woman in the mu­tual em­brace of in­tel­li­gent wed­lock. Mar­riage, with its man­i­fold re­la­tions, is best de­signed to draw forth those pre­cious im­pulses and those higher mo­tives which are in­dis­pens­able to the de­vel­op­ment of a strong char­ac­ter. I do not hes­i­tate thus to glo­rify fam­ily life, for your Mas­ter has wisely cho­sen the fa­ther-child re­la­tion­ship as the very cor­ner­stone of this new gospel of the king­dom. And such a match­less com­mu­nity of re­la­tion­ship, man and woman in the fond em­brace of the high­est ide­als of time, is so valu­able and sat­is­fy­ing an ex­pe­ri­ence that it is worth any price, any sac­ri­fice, req­ui­site for its pos­ses­sion.

• making friends › enrich souls by pooling respective spiritual possessions

160:2.72. Union of souls—the mo­bi­liza­tion of wis­dom. Ev­ery hu­man be­ing sooner or later ac­quires a cer­tain con­cept of this world and a cer­tain vi­sion of the next. Now it is pos­si­ble, through per­son­al­ity as­so­ci­a­tion, to unite these views of tem­po­ral ex­is­tence and eter­nal prospects. Thus does the mind of one aug­ment its spir­i­tual val­ues by gain­ing much of the in­sight of the other. In this way men en­rich the soul by pool­ing their re­spec­tive spir­i­tual pos­ses­sions. Like­wise, in this same way, man is en­abled to avoid that ever-pres­ent ten­dency to fall vic­tim to dis­tor­tion of vi­sion, prej­u­dice of view­point, and nar­row­ness of judg­ment. Fear, envy, and con­ceit can be pre­vented only by in­ti­mate con­tact with other minds. I call your at­ten­tion to the fact that the Mas­ter never sends you out alone to la­bor for the ex­ten­sion of the king­dom; he al­ways sends you out two and two. And since wis­dom is super­knowl­edge, it fol­lows that, in the union of wis­dom, the so­cial group, small or large, mu­tu­ally shares all knowl­edge.

• robs suffering of its sorrow

160:2.83. The en­thu­si­asm for liv­ing. Iso­la­tion tends to ex­haust the en­ergy charge of the soul. As­so­ci­a­tion with one’s fel­lows is es­sen­tial to the re­newal of the zest for life and is in­dis­pens­able to the main­te­nance of the cour­age to fight those bat­tles con­se­quent upon the as­cent to the higher lev­els of hu­man liv­ing. Friend­ship en­hances the joys and glo­ri­fies the tri­umphs of life. Lov­ing and in­ti­mate hu­man as­so­ci­a­tions tend to rob suf­fer­ing of its sor­row and hard­ship of much of its bit­ter­ness. The pres­ence of a friend en­hances all beauty and ex­alts ev­ery good­ness. By in­tel­li­gent sym­bols man is able to quicken and en­large the ap­pre­cia­tive ca­pac­i­ties of his friends. One of the crown­ing glo­ries of hu­man friend­ship is this power and pos­si­bil­ity of the mu­tual stim­u­la­tion of the imag­i­na­tion. Great spir­i­tual power is in­her­ent in the con­scious­ness of whole­hearted de­vo­tion to a com­mon cause, mu­tual loy­alty to a cos­mic De­ity.

160:2.94. The en­hanced de­fense against all evil. Per­son­al­ity as­so­ci­a­tion and mu­tual af­fec­tion is an ef­fi­cient in­sur­ance against evil. Dif­fi­cul­ties, sor­row, dis­ap­point­ment, and de­feat are more painful and dis­heart­en­ing when borne alone. As­so­ci­a­tion does not trans­mute evil into righ­teous­ness, but it does aid in greatly less­en­ing the sting. Said your Mas­ter, “Happy are they who mourn”—if a friend is at hand to com­fort. There is pos­i­tive strength in the knowl­edge that you live for the wel­fare of oth­ers, and that these oth­ers like­wise live for your wel­fare and ad­vance­ment. Man lan­guishes in iso­la­tion. Hu­man be­ings un­fail­ingly be­come dis­cour­aged when they view only the tran­si­tory trans­ac­tions of time. The pres­ent, when di­vorced from the past and the fu­ture, be­comes ex­as­per­at­ingly triv­ial. Only a glimpse of the cir­cle of eter­nity can in­spire man to do his best and can chal­lenge the best in him to do its ut­most. And when man is thus at his best, he lives most un­selfishly for the good of oth­ers, his fel­low so­journ­ers in time and eter­nity.

160:2.10I re­peat, such in­spir­ing and en­nobling as­so­ci­a­tion finds its ideal pos­si­bil­i­ties in the hu­man mar­riage re­la­tion. True, much is at­tained out of mar­riage, and many, many mar­riages ut­terly fail to pro­duce these moral and spir­i­tual fruits. Too many times mar­riage is en­tered by those who seek other val­ues which are lower than these su­pe­rior ac­com­pa­ni­ments of hu­man ma­tu­rity. Ideal mar­riage must be founded on some­thing more sta­ble than the fluc­tu­a­tions of sen­ti­ment and the fick­le­ness of mere sex at­trac­tion; it must be based on gen­uine and mu­tual per­sonal de­vo­tion. And thus, if you can build up such trust­wor­thy and ef­fec­tive small units of hu­man as­so­ci­a­tion, when these are as­sem­bled in the ag­gre­gate, the world will be­hold a great and glo­ri­fied so­cial struc­ture, the civ­i­liza­tion of mor­tal ma­tu­rity. Such a race might be­gin to re­al­ize some­thing of your Mas­ter’s ideal of “peace on earth and good will among men.” While such a so­ci­ety would not be per­fect or en­tirely free from evil, it would at least ap­proach the sta­bi­liza­tion of ma­tu­rity.

• historically › Rodan on f.

160:4.12Train your mem­ory to hold in sa­cred trust the strength-giv­ing and worth-while episodes of life, which you can re­call at will for your plea­sure and ed­i­fi­ca­tion. Thus build up for your­self and in your­self re­serve gal­leries of beauty, good­ness, and artis­tic grandeur. But the no­blest of all mem­o­ries are the trea­sured rec­ol­lec­tions of the great mo­ments of a su­perb friend­ship. And all of these mem­ory trea­sures ra­di­ate their most pre­cious and ex­alt­ing in­flu­ences un­der the re­leas­ing touch of spir­i­tual wor­ship.

• historically › Judas separated himself from supporting influence of friends

177:4.11Ju­das did not re­al­ize it at this time, but he had been a sub­con­scious critic of Je­sus ever since John the Bap­tist was be­headed by Herod. Deep down in his heart Ju­das al­ways re­sented the fact that Je­sus did not save John. You should not for­get that Ju­das had been a dis­ci­ple of John be­fore he be­came a fol­lower of Je­sus. And all these ac­cu­mu­la­tions of hu­man re­sent­ment and bit­ter dis­ap­point­ment which Ju­das had laid by in his soul in ha­bil­i­ments of hate were now well or­ga­nized in his sub­con­scious mind and ready to spring up to en­gulf him when he once dared to sep­a­rate him­self from the sup­port­ing in­flu­ence of his breth­ren while at the same time ex­pos­ing him­self to the clever in­sin­u­a­tions and sub­tle ridicule of the en­e­mies of Je­sus. Ev­ery time Ju­das al­lowed his hopes to soar high and Je­sus would do or say some­thing to dash them to pieces, there was al­ways left in Ju­das’s heart a scar of bit­ter re­sent­ment; and as these scars mul­ti­plied, pres­ently that heart, so of­ten wounded, lost all real af­fec­tion for the one who had in­flicted this dis­taste­ful ex­pe­ri­ence upon a well-in­ten­tioned but cow­ardly and self-cen­tered per­son­al­ity. Ju­das did not re­al­ize it, but he was a cow­ard. Ac­cord­ingly was he al­ways in­clined to as­sign to Je­sus cow­ardice as the mo­tive which led him so of­ten to refuse to grasp for power or glory when they were ap­par­ently within his easy reach. And ev­ery mor­tal man knows full well how love, even when once gen­uine, can, through dis­ap­point­ment, jeal­ousy, and long-con­tin­ued re­sent­ment, be even­tu­ally turned into ac­tual hate.

• impulse of f. transcends all convictions of duty

180:1.6Keep in mind: It is loy­alty, not sac­ri­fice, that Je­sus de­mands. The con­scious­ness of sac­ri­fice im­plies the ab­sence of that whole­hearted af­fec­tion which would have made such a lov­ing ser­vice a su­preme joy. The idea of duty sig­ni­fies that you are ser­vant-minded and hence are miss­ing the mighty thrill of do­ing your ser­vice as a friend and for a friend. The im­pulse of friend­ship tran­scends all con­vic­tions of duty, and the ser­vice of a friend for a friend can never be called a sac­ri­fice. The Mas­ter has taught the apos­tles that they are the sons of God. He has called them breth­ren, and now, be­fore he leaves, he calls them his friends.

• Spirit of Truth directs loving contacts

180:5.11And so must we clearly rec­og­nize that nei­ther the golden rule nor the teach­ing of non­re­sis­tance can ever be prop­erly un­der­stood as dog­mas or pre­cepts. They can only be com­pre­hended by liv­ing them, by re­al­iz­ing their mean­ings in the liv­ing in­ter­pre­ta­tion of the Spirit of Truth, who di­rects the lov­ing con­tact of one hu­man be­ing with an­other.

• friendliness characterizes spirit-born sons of God

180:5.12And all this clearly in­di­cates the dif­fer­ence be­tween the old re­li­gion and the new. The old re­li­gion taught self-sac­ri­fice; the new re­li­gion teaches only self-for­get­ful­ness, en­hanced self-re­al­iza­tion in con­joined so­cial ser­vice and uni­verse com­pre­hen­sion. The old re­li­gion was mo­ti­vated by fear-con­scious­ness; the new gospel of the king­dom is dom­i­nated by truth-con­vic­tion, the spirit of eter­nal and uni­ver­sal truth. And no amount of piety or creedal loy­alty can com­pen­sate for the ab­sence in the life ex­pe­ri­ence of king­dom be­liev­ers of that spon­ta­neous, gen­er­ous, and sin­cere friend­li­ness which char­ac­ter­izes the spirit-born sons of the liv­ing God. Nei­ther tra­di­tion nor a cer­e­mo­nial sys­tem of for­mal wor­ship can atone for the lack of gen­uine com­pas­sion for one’s fel­lows.

• historically › Thomas unwisely left his friends to grieve in solitude

189:4.1As we ap­proach the time of the res­ur­rec­tion of Je­sus on this early Sun­day morn­ing, it should be re­called that the ten apos­tles were so­journ­ing at the home of Eli­jah and Mary Mark, where they were asleep in the up­per cham­ber, rest­ing on the very couches whereon they re­clined dur­ing the last sup­per with their Mas­ter. This Sun­day morn­ing they were all there as­sem­bled ex­cept Thomas. Thomas was with them for a few min­utes late Sat­ur­day night when they first got to­gether, but the sight of the apos­tles, cou­pled with the thought of what had hap­pened to Je­sus, was too much for him. He looked his as­so­ciates over and im­me­di­ately left the room, go­ing to the home of Si­mon in Beth­page, where he thought to grieve over his trou­bles in soli­tude. The apos­tles all suf­fered, not so much from doubt and de­spair as from fear, grief, and shame.

• historically › Thomas unwisely left his friends to grieve in solitude

191:0.1Res­ur­rec­tion Sun­day was a ter­ri­ble day in the lives of the apos­tles; ten of them spent the larger part of the day in the up­per cham­ber be­hind barred doors. They might have fled from Je­ru­sa­lem, but they were afraid of be­ing ar­rested by the agents of the San­hedrin if they were found abroad. Thomas was brood­ing over his trou­bles alone at Beth­page. He would have fared bet­ter had he re­mained with his fel­low apos­tles, and he would have aided them to di­rect their dis­cus­sions along more help­ful lines.

191:0.2All day long John up­held the idea that Je­sus had risen from the dead. He re­counted no less than five dif­fer­ent times when the Mas­ter had af­firmed he would rise again and at least three times when he al­luded to the third day. John’s at­ti­tude had con­sid­er­able in­flu­ence on them, es­pe­cially on his brother James and on Na­than­iel. John would have in­flu­enced them more if he had not been the young­est mem­ber of the group.

191:0.3Their iso­la­tion had much to do with their trou­bles. John Mark kept them in touch with de­vel­op­ments about the tem­ple and in­formed them as to the many ru­mors gain­ing head­way in the city, but it did not oc­cur to him to gather up news from the dif­fer­ent groups of be­liev­ers to whom Je­sus had al­ready ap­peared. That was the kind of ser­vice which had here­to­fore been ren­dered by the mes­sen­gers of David, but they were all ab­sent on their last as­sign­ment as her­alds of the res­ur­rec­tion to those groups of be­liev­ers who dwelt re­mote from Je­ru­sa­lem. For the first time in all these years the apos­tles re­al­ized how much they had been de­pen­dent on David’s mes­sen­gers for their daily in­for­ma­tion re­gard­ing the af­fairs of the king­dom.

• historically › Thomas unwisely left his friends to grieve in solitude

191:0.12Thomas was in the midst of one of his typ­i­cal spells of de­spair­ing de­pres­sion. He slept a por­tion of the day and walked over the hills the rest of the time. He felt the urge to re­join his fel­low apos­tles, but the de­sire to be by him­self was the stronger.

191:0.13The Mas­ter put off the first mor­ontia ap­pear­ance to the apos­tles for a num­ber of rea­sons. First, he wanted them to have time, af­ter they heard of his res­ur­rec­tion, to think well over what he had told them about his death and res­ur­rec­tion when he was still with them in the flesh. The Mas­ter wanted Pe­ter to wres­tle through with some of his pe­cu­liar dif­fi­cul­ties be­fore he man­i­fested him­self to them all. In the sec­ond place, he de­sired that Thomas should be with them at the time of his first ap­pear­ance. John Mark lo­cated Thomas at the home of Si­mon in Beth­page early this Sun­day morn­ing, bring­ing word to that ef­fect to the apos­tles about eleven o’clock. Any time dur­ing this day Thomas would have gone back to them if Na­than­iel or any two of the other apos­tles had gone for him. He re­ally wanted to re­turn, but hav­ing left as he did the evening be­fore, he was too proud to go back of his own ac­cord so soon. By the next day he was so de­pressed that it re­quired al­most a week for him to make up his mind to re­turn. The apos­tles waited for him, and he waited for his breth­ren to seek him out and ask him to come back to them. Thomas thus re­mained away from his as­so­ciates un­til the next Sat­ur­day evening, when, af­ter dark­ness had come on, Pe­ter and John went over to Beth­page and brought him back with them. And this is also the rea­son why they did not go at once to Gal­i­lee af­ter Je­sus first ap­peared to them; they would not go with­out Thomas.

• historically › Thomas unwisely left his friends to grieve in solitude

191:5.1Thomas spent a lone­some week alone with him­self in the hills around about Oli­vet. Dur­ing this time he saw only those at Si­mon’s house and John Mark. It was about nine o’clock on Sat­ur­day, April 15, when the two apos­tles found him and took him back with them to their ren­dezvous at the Mark home. The next day Thomas lis­tened to the telling of the sto­ries of the Mas­ter’s var­i­ous ap­pear­ances, but he stead­fastly re­fused to be­lieve. He main­tained that Pe­ter had en­thused them into think­ing they had seen the Mas­ter. Na­than­iel rea­soned with him, but it did no good. There was an emo­tional stub­born­ness as­so­ci­ated with his cus­tom­ary doubt­ful­ness, and this state of mind, cou­pled with his cha­grin at hav­ing run away from them, con­spired to cre­ate a sit­u­a­tion of iso­la­tion which even Thomas him­self did not fully un­der­stand. He had with­drawn from his fel­lows, he had gone his own way, and now, even when he was back among them, he un­con­sciously tended to as­sume an at­ti­tude of dis­agree­ment. He was slow to sur­ren­der; he dis­liked to give in. With­out in­tend­ing it, he re­ally en­joyed the at­ten­tion paid him; he de­rived un­con­scious sat­is­fac­tion from the ef­forts of all his fel­lows to con­vince and con­vert him. He had missed them for a full week, and he ob­tained con­sid­er­able plea­sure from their per­sis­tent at­ten­tions.

• making friends › he who would have friends must be friendly

193:3.2“Peace be upon you. I have asked you to tarry here in Je­ru­sa­lem un­til I as­cend to the Fa­ther, even un­til I send you the Spirit of Truth, who shall soon be poured out upon all flesh, and who shall en­dow you with power from on high.” Si­mon Ze­lo­tes in­ter­rupted Je­sus, ask­ing, “Then, Mas­ter, will you re­store the king­dom, and will we see the glory of God man­i­fested on earth?” When Je­sus had lis­tened to Si­mon’s ques­tion, he an­swered: “Si­mon, you still cling to your old ideas about the Jew­ish Mes­siah and the ma­te­rial king­dom. But you will re­ceive spir­i­tual power af­ter the spirit has de­scended upon you, and you will pres­ently go into all the world preach­ing this gospel of the king­dom. As the Fa­ther sent me into the world, so do I send you. And I wish that you would love and trust one an­other. Ju­das is no more with you be­cause his love grew cold, and be­cause he re­fused to trust you, his loyal breth­ren. Have you not read in the Scrip­ture where it is writ­ten: ‘It is not good for man to be alone. No man lives to him­self’? And also where it says: ‘He who would have friends must show him­self friendly’? And did I not even send you out to teach, two and two, that you might not be­come lonely and fall into the mis­chief and mis­eries of iso­la­tion? You also well know that, when I was in the flesh, I did not per­mit my­self to be alone for long pe­ri­ods. From the very be­gin­ning of our as­so­ci­a­tions I al­ways had two or three of you con­stantly by my side or else very near at hand even when I com­muned with the Fa­ther. Trust, there­fore, and con­fide in one an­other. And this is all the more need­ful since I am this day go­ing to leave you alone in the world. The hour has come; I am about to go to the Fa­ther.”