Friends And Lovers

About This Issue
by Robert Gilman

Section One: Conviviality & Love

When we talk about human relationships, we are really talking about love. The tepid love of strangers. The torrid love of intimates. Awkward love. Heavenly love. Comfortable love. Self love. Brotherly love. Unconditional love. So it is through love that we will enter the realm of relationships, though we can't confine it to one section - it will be the essence of the entire journey.

Conviviality
Relationships as a spiritual path.

A New Meaning For Love by Charles Johnston
What it takes to love now as whole people.

Love That Works by Frosty Holladay
Practical keys to unconditional love.

Someone And Me by Poof
An ode to love just cuz.

Section Two: Friends

In a humane sustainable culture, our circle of friends will likely be the "fastest growing sector" of our relationship life. What extended families once provided and social workers/therapists/counselors/telephone hot lines/parole officers now provide, we and our friends will provide for each other. Friends who share the growing edges, the scary/exciting frontiers. Friends to be comfortably at ease with. Friends as company through valleys of grief and fear and despair. Friends to share joys and victories. Friends as mentors, guiding learning. Friends as whetstones, honing visions, polishing dreams. Friends in silence together, breathing together, communing. Friends as midwives during the labor of birth, the surrender of death. Our friends will be our true riches.

The following articles may illuminate and affirm the many ways our friends can and do enrich our lives.

Practical Friendship by John Hoff
How to get by (better) with a little help from our friends.

My Three Worlds by Ellen Ghilarducci
A suburban housewife's patchwork of important relationships.

Strangers All by Sanford Forte
Encountering the unknown in others.

A Baptist Bodhisattva by Will Miles
Dimensions of a deepening friendship.

Letting Go Of The Enemy by Jane Hughes Gignoux
Looking through the enemy's eyes allows creative solutions to appear.

Trusting And Truthing by Stan Dale
An honest look at the effects of dishonesty in intimate relationships.

My Selves In The Mirror by Carol Putnam
Cultivating friendships within allows connection with others.

Section Three: Lovers

The border between friends and lovers is not sharp even today, and it may be less distinct in the future. Still, for most of us, there is a difference - a greater intimacy and intensity that usually finds sexual expression, but sex alone is not enough to describe the difference. How does this quality of intimacy fit into the world we are creating? Is it obsolete? Will it find new forms? Will old forms be enlivened with fresh understandings?

The following articles explore these questions and look at how the principles of maturity and diversity can be applied so that the energy of intimacy can serve the well being of the whole person and the whole planet.

Connect/Reject by Deena Metzger
The uneasy dance of intimacy.

The Gender Trap by Herb Goldberg
How far we have, and haven't, come in transcending traditional gender programming.

Marriage: What's The Point? by Susan Dixon
The health of a marriage depends on its purpose.

Our Covenant by Deborah Koff-Chapin
A different marriage vow.

Two Cornerstones For A Marriage by Kirstie Lewis, Peter Sugarman, and Vivienne Hull
Reshaping the personal and global purposes of marriage.

Polygamy: Another Lovestyle by Deborah Anapol
Opening the way for diversity of form in healthy relationships .

Intimacy In A Fluid World by F. M. Esfandiary
Our new historical conditions offer fresh options for relationships.

Falling In Love by Lila Forest
A perilous journey to wholeness.

Growing Up Into Innocence by Richard Turner
Initiation by fire into the manly ways of love.

If Only I'd Known by Vicki Robin
What would you tell yourself at puberty?

We're Not Ready Yet, But Soon by Danaan Parry
Exploring the edge of maleness.

Refections On Intimacy
A collage of perspectives.

Divine Marriage
A deeper understanding of the role of sexual love.

The Possible Relationship by the U. V. Family
Basic principles from an innovative relationship.

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