Tonight we give thanks for the great gift of friendship and in particular for my great friend . . . thank you for the circumstances that brought us together and have bound us together into the sacred bundle of life. Thank you also for the gift of our friendship: for knowledge that comforts, for words that encourage, for insight that blesses, for all the experience shared, for the sweet bliss of knowing each other deeply in so many ways; for history and a hope of the future, for conversation and laughter, for silence, for bearing each other's witness truly, for holding each other safe in our hearts with great love and tenderness.

Daphne Rose Kingma Kurtz in The Grateful Table by Brenda Knight