Old Friends

Tuesday, January 10, 2007 -- Week of 1 Epiphany, Year 1 -- Julia Emery

"Morning Reflections" is a brief thought about the scripture readings from the Daily Office of Morning and Evening Prayer according to the practice found in the Book of Common Prayer of the Episcopal Church.

Morning Prayer begins on p. 80 of the Book of Common Prayer.
Evening Prayer begins on p. 117
An online resource for praying the Daily Office is found at www.missionstclare.com
Another form of the office from Phyllis Tickle's "Divine Hours" is available on our partner web site www.ExploreFaith.org at this location -- http://explorefaith.org/prayer/fixed/index.html

Today's Readings for the Daily Office (p. 942)
Psalms 5, 6(morning) // 10, 11(evening)
Isaiah 40:25-31
Ephesians 1:15-23
Mark 1:14-28

One of the things that happens when you read, study and pray with scripture regularly, is that certain passages become very precious to you. Revisiting these passages is like being with an old friend. The memories and emotions of the past, even from many years ago, return with a warm familiarity.

I have an old friend from seminary days. We had not seen each other for over a decade. When I had an opportunity to visit with him again, it took about three minutes to be back in that old, familiar place of connection and enjoyment. We were talking and laughing with the same energy that we have enjoyed so many years ago. Coming back to a Biblical passage that you have meditated with and deeply valued is like that.

Sometime about 1975 I was in a Bible study group. One of the books that we studied was the letter to the Ephesians. It was my turn to make the presentation when we came to today's reading from the first chapter. It really is true that the teacher gets to learn more than the students. I really got to know this passage. Part of what I learned was that a significant portion of this opening part of the letter is an extended prayer from the writer. I invited our study group to let that prayer become our own -- to imagine the apostle offering that prayer personally for each of us. The apostle's prayer became internalized for me.

So today, as soon as I began to read, I returned to that place of memory and let this prayer be my own again. I felt the apostle praying for me once more: "I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints..."

Because I have stayed with each of these phrases for some time and studied them, they are now filled with richness and meaning for me. I especially love the phrase "with the eyes of your heart enlightened." I have thought a lot about "the eye of our heart" -- that deep intuitive knowing which unites intellect, intuition and emotion. The Spirit is our guide to the territory of the heart. The wisdom and revelation that can be available to the eye of the heart is a gift from "the God of our Lord Jesus Christ."

When we are open to that gift and the Spirit touches our heart, we can experience a deep interior sense of "the hope to which he has called you" and "the riches of his glorious inheritance." Thirty years ago I stayed with those phrases long enough for them to become real to me. Now when I visit them again, the meaning returns like a treasured old friend. That's one of the gifts of reading, studying, and praying with these holy texts.

Lowell
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The Rev. Lowell Grisham
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Fayetteville, AR