Friends have been defined as people who know you at your worst and like you anyway, people in whose company you can be yourself. But perhaps more than anything else, friends are people who care about you for who you are, not what you can do for them. There is a kind of holiness in true friendship, because it makes sure that we are never alone when we desperately need to not be alone.
~ from LIVING A LIFE THAT MATTERS by Harold S. Kushner
The seed of prayer is sown in heaven. It pushes its stems toward the earth and comes to grow there. It produces an abundance of fruit. Then, as it becomes seed once more, it thrusts its way back to heaven.