I've been watching the discussion this week on my blog, Facebook, and Love Is An Orientation (with guest blogger Dan Brennan) about sacred friendships. Several people have expressed the belief that having deep friendships--particularly cross-gender--somehow takes away from the intimacy and depth of a marriage. It's as if they believe that if you love a friend deeply, then you have less love to share with your spouse. Or that somehow intense friendships infringe on the exclusivity and specialness of marriage.

Dan Brennan, a friend of mine and author of Sacred Unions Sacred Passions, guest blogged today on Andrew Marin's blog Love Is An Orientation. In describing his journey of developing close friendships with women, he writes:

Today is International Women's Day. In connection with that, it's also Feminist Coming Out Day--an event originally started by student groups at Harvard, endeavoring to show a new view of what a feminist is. Go check out the blog and see what feminism looks like in all its different forms. I'm in there somewhere, I think.

“Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love... the clarity of hatred... and the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion maybe we'd know some kind of peace... but we would be hollow... Empty rooms shuttered and dank. Without passion we'd be truly dead.”

--Joss Whedon--