It catches me by surprise sometimes, the reflections inspired from teaching my daughter’s Sunday School class. Last weekend, the topic was “friendship,” and we studied from the biblical example of David and Jonathan. It got me thinking…what is friendship, exactly? And what is the difference between having friends and being a friend?

Merriam-Webster defines friend as “one attached to another by affection or esteem; acquaintance.” Not to quibble with the dictionary, but my definition is a little stricter than merely “acquaintance.” To me, friendship involves a lot more of the loyalty and caring exhibited by Jonathan and David. And it’s a lot more like the sentiment expressed in Proverbs 17:17—”A friend loves at all times.”

A friend, a genuine friend, cares through thick and thin, through both prosperity and adversity. A friend celebrates your accomplishments, mourns your setbacks, sticks up for you, provides encouragement, is willing to listen, forgives your mistakes, and laughs with you, never at you. True friends sincerely want the best for each other and invest time in nurturing that relationship. At least, this is the type of friend I aspire to be to those I care most about. Not always successfully, but it’s what I try for.

Only a limited few of my acquaintances meet this tough criteria, however. Which begs the question: Why is it so hard to find such friends? What it is that connects us in true friendship to a handful of people in our lives? Just what are those indefinable qualities that drive only some of our social acquaintances beyond the superficial into the type of deep and lifelong caring, loyalty, respect, and trust that most of us long for?

I have no answers, only questions. But I can venture some personal opinions on the subject. Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “the only way to have a friend is to be one.” I believe this is where we often miss the boat. Being a friend requires time and energy—two things not everyone is willing to give in equal proportion. I know people who are friendly enough when it’s convenient to their schedules, or when they need something in return. I’ve been guilty of it myself. I have acquaintances I never hear from until they need a favor, and others who talk on and on yet somehow never find time to show an interest in what’s important to me. These are people I am happy enough to socialize with when the opportunity arises, but they are not who I would depend on in a time of need. Perhaps they aren’t “wired” with these friendship characteristics. Or maybe they’ve simply reserved that depth of friendship for others in their lives with whom they share more in common.

It’s true that common interests bond us with certain people more than others. Common hobbies, similar beliefs, shared life experiences. I know I’ve spent the last few years growing friendships with people of faith as my own faith has become more important to me. And digging deeper into my past, I count among my closest friends those who knew me as I was emerging into the person I would become, in my childhood and college years and beyond.

Some of these people in my life advanced rapidly toward friendship, while others developed more slowly over time. Either way, these are not acquaintances that will come and go. They are friends for life. They have earned my loyalty, and I hope I have earned theirs. Their numbers may be relatively few, but fortunately, it’s not the quantity of our friends that is important, but the quality. I’d rather have a few deeply meaningful friendships than a few hundred superficial ones.

In this area, I’ve been richly blessed. For example, when Kent unexpectedly earned himself an ambulance ride and a night in the hospital last year with chest pains, a small handful of local friends immediately offered to assist with the kids if we needed it. Though it proved unnecessary, I have not forgotten the generous offers from friends willing to upend their own schedules with no notice. These are the friends I know I can count on. And I’d do the same for every single one of them. In a heartbeat.

In closing, I leave you all with this quote:

Do not save your loving speeches for your friends till they are dead; Do not write them on their tombstones, speak them rather now instead.

~ Anna Cummins

And so, to my friends whom I love dearly:

I’d like to be the sort of friend that you have been to me. I’d like to be the help that you’ve been always glad to be; I’d like to mean as much to you each minute of the day, as you have meant, old friend of mine, to me along the way.

~ Edgar A. Guest

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Fittingly, as I was in the middle of drafting this entry this afternoon, one of my best friends from college, whom I met on my first day there just over 20 years ago now, called for a lovely chat, just because. I can’t think of a better reason to be interrupted from writing on the topic of friendship than to talk with one of those friends. Hi, Jill!

I don’t know which one of us is weirdly abnormal, me or Kent. Because either I desperately need hearing aids, or he has the most supersonic hearing ever granted to a human being.

One morning earlier this week, when I turned on the TV in our bedroom to get my daily dose of bad news, the volume was turned all the way down. Or so I thought. As I was positioning my trigger thumb over the remote to gain some decibels, Kent started commenting on whatever news story was in progress. Huh? I, who am within arm’s reach of the TV, cannot discern any sound. He, who is standing across the room in his closet, is reciting back to me every word that Matt Lauer is speaking.

Like any good wife, I didn’t believe him, so I turned it up to prove him wrong. Instead, I discovered that it is, in fact, possible to hear the TV on mute.

I think I’ll be scheduling that hearing test now.

I love Columbus Day. Inexplicably, it’s one of the holidays I get off from work, even though I’m not employed by a bank, the government, or the post office. Even my husband, who DOES work for a local city government, has to work today. And the kids have school.

Is it obvious yet why I love Columbus Day? I love it for the rarity of its exquisite, perfect, blessed silence. No TV. No music. No bickering. No interruptions. No nothing. Just me enjoying the house all to myself and basking in the pure, unadulterated solitude.

To me, that silence sounds a lot like reading. And writing. And reflecting. And praying. And utter stillness before God. So if anyone is looking for me today, that’s where I’ll be.

Leave it to a punctuation nerd like me to know that today is National Punctuation Day. In honor of this special occasion, please join me in once again celebrating the merits of the em dash. This classic punctuational post receives frequent Google hits from visitors desperate to learn about the proper usage of this misunderstood punctuation mark, and stands alone as the most commented upon entry on this site.

Now go forth, educate yourselves, and pledge to properly punctuate all of your written communication!

It’s official. My children now have no excuse for not seeking a college education. We have written our final check to the Florida Prepaid College Plan, and have just received the joy-inducing letter that states, “Your plan is paid in full.”

The Florida Prepaid College Plan is a unique program that allows Florida residents to pay for tomorrow’s tuition at today’s rates. But this is no ordinary college saving program. Our investment is financially guaranteed by the state of Florida. Here are some of the wonderful benefits of the program:

• Provided our children attend a state university in Florida, we will never have to pay another dime for tuition, no matter how much tuition rises between now and then.
• The benefits are transferable to nearly any public or private college or university in the country at the equivalent of Florida’s in-state tuition rates at the time of transfer. In such a case we would, of course, be responsible for any difference not covered by the plan.
• We will receive an equivalent refund should either of our children be awarded a scholarship that covers all or part of their tuition.
• We will get a full refund of our investment should either of our children opt against college. Which will never be presented to them as an option, making this a moot point.

It feels good to know that Maia and Noah’s educational futures are secure. But that doesn’t mean we’re done saving by a long shot. We’ve got big plans for our kids, and we want to make sure we have the means to make up the difference in value should, say, the Ivy Leagues come calling. Hey, it could happen!

Yes, it’s true, I have finally succumbed to the “fad” known as social networking. Being the tech geek that I am, you’d think I would have caught on sooner, but it seems I am a latecomer to this particular party.

It all started back in March, when I dipped my toe in the water by creating a professional profile on LinkedIn. I was surprised to discover how many contacts from my email address book already had a presence there! I immediately connected to many of them, and I’m strangely proud of the quality of the LinkedIn network that I have established, both as the inviter and the invitee. These are the professionals — coworkers, clients, and industry colleagues — whom I want to keep track of and in touch with. I may need them some day.

Then in July, spurred by two unrelated but nearly simultaneous requests, I hit Facebook and immediately started linking up with friends, family members, and former classmates. One friend wondered what took me so long to get there, being a high tech blogger and all. The answer is, I didn’t get it. But now I do! I love checking in on the brief status updates of my friends every day and enjoying a few rounds of Scramble (a highly addictive Boggle style game). Through Facebook, I know who is facing surgery, who is dodging hurricanes, who is traveling, who loves laundry, who is watching what on TV, who is doing what at work, and what type of mood various friends may be in, among other things. It has quickly become a preferred way to stay in touch. Recently, I planned an outing with some local friends entirely through Facebook. And thanks to a neat application called Simplaris Blogcast, I have even managed to rig this very blog to automatically notify Facebook whenever I publish a new entry. Blogcast adds a link to the new post directly in my Facebook profile. I don’t have to do a thing!

But now, less than two months into Facebook, people are telling me I should be on Twitter, too. Say what? I just can’t keep up with the bleeding edge of technology that is moving faster than the speed of light. I’m not so sure I have time for all this social networking. Or the desire to broadcast my life so constantly and minutely, which is what a site like Twitter seems to encourage. That, I still don’t get.

What I do “get” is the cool new “ShareThis” link that is now at the bottom of all of my posts. A good friend was recently named Chief Product Officer (announced yesterday) for the company responsible for this clever utility. If you are so inclined, at the click of a button you can now share any of my posts with your choice of social bookmarking or social networking sites, or forward the link directly to anyone via email. I think it’s a very elegant solution to eliminating the clutter of social icons that I see on some blogs, and I am proud to add it to mine.

For a 3-month period between March 29 and July 1, 2008, I gave up on blogging. Not permanently, of course. But other activities and obligations piled on one after another, ceaselessly demanding my attention. Something had to give. My muse, rejecting the argument that sleep is an overrated luxury, finally rebelled; I cracked and took a prolonged blogging break.

I present this fact as the most pitiful of excuses to explain why I failed to document here a very significant event that took place during this time. On Sunday, May 4, 2008, our daughter Maia was baptized.

It’s a decision she had been talking about for a while, and we gently encouraged her whenever she brought it up, always letting her lead the discussion, fearful of pushing her into a decision that was not truly her own. But we knew it was only a matter of time, since the signs of her uninhibited faith had been growing steadily. I submit as partial evidence Exhibit A and Exhibit B. And those are but two examples in a long list. There are many more like them.

Sometimes I find post-it notes stuck in odd places around the house, such as inside the door of the linen closet, with messages like “I love Jesus” proclaimed in Maia’s youthful handwriting. In school (public school, no less), she openly shares her faith with her friends. Once, in an exercise related to a story the class had read, her teacher asked each student what three items they would take with them if stranded in the desert. Maia’s first response was her Bible. It wasn’t the second or the third thing she named. It was at the top of the list. She also begs to be the one to pray at every meal, especially when we are in the company of others, and often astounds me with the insight and depth of those prayers. More than once I have wondered how words so perfect for the occasion can come out of the mouth of a nine-year-old.

And so it was that she came to the decision that 2008 would be the year. Initially she wanted to follow in her father’s footsteps and be baptized on her birthday, which falls on a Sunday this year. But October was too far away, and she didn’t think she wanted to wait that long. Then she started thinking maybe in the summer, until she learned that “Bring a Friend” Sunday was coming up soon. She knew immediately that would be the day, with her baptism as a wonderful witness to the expected visitors. A meeting with our preacher confirmed what we already knew—that Maia was making her decision for the right reasons, and she was ready.

When the day arrived, she never wavered. Maia repeated the confession of faith with confidence and maturity, in front of a congregation that has been her church family since birth. Kent declined the opportunity to perform the baptism himself, fearing he would be too emotional. So we watched together, moved beyond reason as a faithful little soul accepted Christ as her Lord and Savior.

Dear Fay,

You tricky, tricky storm. Perhaps I was too hasty in my judgment of you. Yesterday, I called you overhyped. Today, you retaliated with something that actually resembles weather.

Your torrential rains have flooded many areas on this wet, blustery day, including my own back yard. Schools, which finally re-opened this morning (ironically on your worst day), are closed again tomorrow now that you have succeeded in making some roads impassable. My drive home from work tonight almost bordered on treacherous, thanks to your gusty winds, newly formed potholes, and leaf strewn roads. And now our lights are flickering, so perhaps we will yet attribute loss of electricity to you, as well.

I know you are just doing your job, my stormy friend, but now that you have had your rebellious little parting shot, it is time to take your nastiness elsewhere. I still don’t like you. And it’s still nothing personal.

Sincerely,

A concerned citizen

Dear Tropical Storm Fay,

I know it’s not your fault, but you are a symptom of all that is wrong with our storm obsessed local media, who like to hype non-events like yourself and then wonder why no one takes the warnings for the real storms seriously.

Because of you, my kids have needlessly lost two days of school. You may be an aspiring hurricane wannabe, but you simply are not menacing enough to warrant such influence over the education of my children. Garden variety summer breezes pack more punch than you; I have not seen so much as a single leaf blown off a tree since you made your overhyped appearance in our neck of the woods.

You are a sissy storm, and now you are stalled just off our coast, making a nuisance of yourself with gray and rainy weather. And while I am thankful that you have not done more damage, and grateful that, courtesy of you, we will not have to irrigate our lawn or add water to the pool this week, I don’t like you. You irritate me. It’s nothing personal.

Sincerely,

A concerned citizen

I think I have the most disobedient kids in the world, because never once have they heeded my admonishments to stay little forever and stop growing up. The latest act of blatant rebellion? Noah stepping onto the school bus for his first day of kindergarten.

A mother can surely be forgiven for tearing up at such a sight, right?

And this same mother should likewise be forgiven for letting her overprotective instincts rule by racing ahead to meet the bus at school, making sure that her baby knew where to go. And of course she must also be forgiven for getting choked up as she waved goodbye to him in the classroom, having already chosen a seat among the other kids.

So began my day, with the stark realization that my baby is a baby no more. He is growing up far faster than I have given him permission for, and I don’t like it one bit.

I worried about the little guy all day long. Was he overwhelmed by the strange classroom and new faces? Did he like his teacher? Would he participate in class? Did he eat his lunch? Was he making friends? And just how many seconds left until I could leave work to go home and hear all about his first day?

Apparently I had nothing to worry about. He had friends to play with, and he ate pizza for lunch, and he offered “alligator” when asked for words that start with the letter A. And the very best part of kindergarten, I learned, is the amazing revelation that you can have chocolate milk at lunch EVERY DAY.

I’d say the first day of kindergarten was a success. But I’m still not happy that it came long before I was ready to see my baby step onto that school bus like a big boy, his face beaming from the window, all growed up.