Faith and Values: Focusing on good fortune this holiday season

For some of us, this is an awkward season.

Traditionally this is when we travel to see our relatives, buy them gifts and share meals together. Many of us, though, have wounds when it comes to family: grief, rejection, tension. It can cast a shadow over the holidays.

I honestly can’t remember the last time I spent Christmas with my blood relatives. It’s been 15 years, probably more.

Luckily, though, I’ve found another family to latch onto. This will be the second Christmas with my wife’s family.

Before I met her, I clung to friends this time of year.

Friendships have always filled voids in my life and been a source of healing.

Yet, they’re hard to hold on – especially, it seems, as I grow older and life becomes increasingly busy.

Earlier this year, I had a falling out with someone who was once a dear friend to me.

We now live in different states, have developed new relationships and interests, and simply grew apart.

I wasn’t there for her for the big moments in her new life, and so she wasn’t there for mine.

In this, we unintentionally hurt each other and haven’t found our way back.

Now, someone I once talked to weekly has become just another update in my social media feed.

Sadly, she’s not the first.

Over the years, I’ve let too many friendships fizzle: friends from high school, college, former co-workers. These were once people I listened to and laughed with and turned to for comfort. These were people who brought out the best in me.

But I work too much. I’ve moved a lot. I isolate. I avoid difficult conversations. I could be better at making the time to go see the people I call my friends.

And so, they fade away.

I understand friends come and go, but the holidays have me thinking more about these relationships: the ones I’ve lost and the ones I’m still holding onto.

Socrates once said, “Be slow to fall into friendship; but when thou art in, continue firm and constant.”

His words are a reminder to me to not take my friends for granted, not anymore.

We’ve all heard the term “chosen family,” especially in the queer community. In the coming year, I want to show my friends – my chosen family – just how much I cherish them. I’m doing this by building on my own strengths so I can be a better companion to them.

The Buddha said there are four “good-hearted friends.” These are the helper, the one who endures in good times and bad, the mentor and the compassionate.

The helper protects you when you’re vulnerable and is a refuge when you need them to be. The enduring never defies you. The mentor guides you to right action, and the compassionate delights in your good fortune and stands up for you.

I may be disconnected from my own family, and my list of friends may have slimmed over the years, but the people who remain are truly “good-hearted” and make me better. They’re on the Palouse and in Spokane and in California and in New England and the South. How lucky am I?

That good fortune is what I’m focusing on this holiday season.

Because, as Thomas Aquinas said, “There’s nothing on this Earth more to be prized than true friendship.”

Tracy Simmons, a longtime religion reporter, is a Washington State University scholarly assistant professor and the editor of FāVS News, a website dedicated to covering faith, ethics and values in the Spokane region.