Tom Atkins is a rare man. He is honest, thoughtful, generous, complex. He is a pastor, a poet, a painter, a photographer, a father, a blogger. In recent months, he lost a general store and a diner in his town of Pawlet, Vt. A man of community and connection, this has sent him down into the loving arms of the Round House Cafe in my town of Cambridge.

His loss is our gain, Tom and I often discuss the trials of men and friendship, and perhaps neither of us noticed that in the process we were becoming friends. Friendship does not come as easily to me as it perhaps comes to Tom, I’m not sure about that. But we are doing the work of friendship – making time for one another, talking to each other honestly and openly. For me, trust is the foundation of friendship, that does not come easily to me.

Tom is a kind of Renaissance creative, creativity is a part of his life view, it is natural and organic, a lava flow. We don’t have to be one thing in life, we can be many.

On this gorgeous crisp Fall day, we sat in the Round House quite early – it opens at 7 a.m.  now, and talked easily for more than an hour before we both got to work. How ironic that a diner closes in Vermont, I find the pathway to friendship in my back yard.Isn’t life like that?

I appreciate being friends with a spiritual man, we both agreed that among men, friendship is sacred. It takes awhile. It takes a lot of work and commitment, a lot of honesty, a lot of openness, a lot of loyalty trust. It is true that men are different than women in so many ways, many of them troublesome and difficult and unpleasant. But making friends is a sacred thing to me, I do not take it lightly. Friendship, something that has often eluded me in my complicated life, is not to be taken lightly, for it is a form of love, it opens us up to vulnerability. And like love, it comes when one is open to it.