By Jean P. Kelly
I WALKED FOR the first time into a multi-day ecumenical faith festival on my own, not knowing a soul and unsure what to expect as a newcomer. Within 15 minutes of arriving, I met a fellow podcaster, then her son, then her brother and by the end of the day I was part of their friends & family group enjoying a musician on stage. Throughout the next three days all were reliable companions, bearing out what I had heard about the authentic hospitality offered annually at the Wild Goose Festival. As one veteran attendee told me “I always make friends I don’t even know I need.”
Just a few days before I drove six hours to North Carolina, a friend of more than 30 years ghosted my invitation to dinner. A voicemail left for another long-time buddy during my return drive likewise went unanswered. That neither was an anomaly, yet I persisted in my attempts to connect, was all the proof needed to affirm how much easier it is to preach detachment than to practice it. My talk at the festival about the importance of establishing boundaries with loved ones, based on my book, Less Helping Them, More Healing You, concluded with a quote from a favorite spiritual teacher, Fr. Anthony DeMello: “When I die to the need for people, then I am right in the desert…. It is solitude, it is aloneness, and the desert begins to flower.”
Continue reading “Make new friends without keeping the old”
Jean P. Kelly, Intentional Path Media 