Establishing friendship has been on my mind lately. Living in this new area with people I have yet to meet and a longing to want to reach out and have meaningful and purposeful conversations. I want something more than conversations that do not reach any depth and are superficial. Superficial relationships exhaust me because I have never been very good at small talk. When I was younger I would often stand/sit in very awkward silence scouring my brain for something witty to say, by which time I had left an impression that I was weird. The energy it takes for me to sustain such a conversation, I have found draining. Questions like where do I start; how do I go about this; surface for me and I am at a loss to answer them. Engaging in gossip and backbiting, which seems to temporarily unite so many of us often fizzles out or worse, ends in a resurgence of the behaviour that brought us together but this time directed personally. Shared personal interests or political views, ethnicities and experiences often attract people to one another but even they may not have the staying power to maintain a connection. I know that in order to have any degree of longevity, trustworthiness must be woven into the bonds of friendship as it is being established. It does not serve me to be anyone other than who I am. Often we focus on ourselves as roots to establish a connection but what of our thoughts and our beliefs? I do work with others centred around the Virtues Project and continue to learn how to cultivate these virtues. I tend to share that with people when I am asked about how I spend my time. It is a helpful segway into a conversation about spirituality, which I know people tend to find uncomfortable. It often catches me off guard when people want to talk about spiritual topics before I have had a chance to introduce the virtues. I recently had such an experience. On Sunday a neighbour of mine knocked on the door to introduce himself. He was smiling and confident in his introduction. I got to the door toward the end of the conversation between him and my son and he was walking away. I called out to him to thank him for coming over. He then invited me to a Christian meeting that he was on his way to attend in a neighbouring town. I thanked him for his kind invitation letting him know that I was facilitating a study group around the Word of God with my family but that I would be interested to have a conversation with him later about what he learned at the meeting. I was delighted at his visit and plan to bake something yummy to take over to him so that we may go about the business of nurturing a relationship. As exciting as this is, I am humbled that in going about establishing a successful friendship with my neighbour, I must bear in mind how to be worthy of his trust.