Good Will Hunting

I remember the moment, 15 years ago, when I lay in the dark and prayed: "God, please give me a friend."

I was newly married, a new mom, in a new community, and I barely knew anyone. No one invited me over for coffee and a chat. No one came over for supper and drinks. Praise God I had aunts and uncles nearby, but in the day-to-day grind, I was pretty lonely. I was hunting for a new friend.

I didn't know what I was looking for. But even at 23 years old, I already knew that friendships don't always go smoothly. The problem of friendship is deeply linked to the problem of being human: how terrifying it is that we aren't perfect. Our great fear is that one day people are going to find us out and realize that we're a hot mess hiding behind smoke and mirrors and be done with us.

I have some regrets in friendship in my life. Even in my zeal to be a good person or to do the right thing, I have sometimes hurt people. Some of my friends have done the same to me. Navigating the right course of action isn't always easy, and despite our best intentions, we sometimes miss the mark. But if being perfect is a condition of being someone's friend, I think we are all doomed to a lonely existence.

I remember reading in my favorite book, Searching for and Maintaining Peace by Father Jacques Phillippe, about the most important condition for maintaining interior peace. I think it is probably the most important condition for friendship as well: Goodwill.

"It is the stable and constant disposition of a person who is determined more than anything to love God, who desires sincerely to prefer in all circumstances the will of God to his own, who does not wish to consciously  refuse anything to God. Maybe (and even certainly) in everyday life, his behavior will not be in perfect harmony with this desire, this intention...Following moments of eventual failure, he will strive to come back to his usual disposition of wanting to say "yes" to God in all things, without exception." (p. 17).

When we are searching for travelling companions on this journey of life, the most important quality to search for is not talent or skill, humor, gentleness, or even kindness. Beneath everything, the one disposition of heart that will set a great friend apart from an acquaintance is this virtue.

God has answered my prayer for friends more abundantly than I could have ever imagined possible long ago in that dark bedroom in the middle of the night. Each seems to have this one beautiful thing in common: no matter their personality, disposition, or even temper, when I look deeply and carefully, I find goodwill in the heart of each one. If you are lonely as I was, I encourage you to pray for a friend and the virtue of good will in your own heart, then, go goodwill hunting. By God's grace, you will find it.