I was thinking yesterday how much this space reminds me of the way the internet used to be. That thought led me to nostalgia for my old blog, which I'd thought was lost but has been mostly preserved by the Internet Archive. I found this post from February 2002...
Friendship is a wonderful thing - empowering, supportive and life-giving.
Being part of a close-knit group of friends is a tremendous experience;
the mutuality and care of friends are often a lifeline when things get grim for us.
But the true test of friendship comes not in how the friends treat themselves >
but in how they treat the stranger. Friendship, properly understood, is always welcoming
and open.
The line between close friendship and 'cliqueiness' is often difficult to define
with any clarity - it only becomes obvious once it's been crossed.
Jesus said to his disciples "I do not call you servants any longer, instead I call you
friends."
It is that friendship which should be the model on which we base all our friendships --
networks of compassion and care that empower not only those on the inside but which
look to the needs of the stranger and outcast as well.
I would probably word it slightly differently now (and I confess to having made a tweak to the punctuation) but 24 years on, I still agree with myself.
The younger Richard thanks you for your attention to this matter.
[Update] Clearly, I need to wrangle with the css for blockquoted text. But not today.
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richard <AT> deckzero <DOT> uk