Two Everyday Liturgies
On Being Reunited with a Friend
O God, I am most aware of Your closeness when I am electric with joy,
and I am never more joyful than when I meet a beloved friend after long absence.
Grant that we may recognize our joy at reuniting as a mere hint of the rapture
of running into Your arms at the end of all things.
Grant us to make peace with the time that has swept between us.
Let the changes we notice be not like sparks held close to the gunpowder of jealous fear,
But rather like gentle lights illuminating wonderful details of the other, never visible before.
As we bring each other up to date, give us grace to take true joy in each other’s joys,
and receive each other’s sorrows with true sorrow and sympathy,
as You have taught us to do.
Lord, our meeting feels like a homecoming, like an old wound is being healed.
Grant us to remember that as we feel renewed and at home in this moment,
We will feel the same, multiplied tenfold and twentyfold, on seeing You, O Lord,
as those whom Christ has called “friends.”
Lord, Thank You for the great blessing of this friendship.
Let it be glorifying to You and Your kingdom, and let all that we do and all that we say be pleasing to You;
And keep us in the hope of the joy that this meeting foreshadows.
Amen.
On Reading for Leisure
O Word of God, You brought forth the world with your voice.
From the mouth of the Lord came the words that formed galaxies.
Grant me the discernment and the wonder
to see and appreciate the worlds evoked by the words on these pages.
Grant me to submerge myself in this sub-created universe,
and to find understanding of the author
who poured his soul and intellect and countless hours into this work.
O Lord, Holy Word, Creator of all,
in this act of entering the mind of a stranger,
grant me also greater knowledge of Your mind,
and of the ways Your holy truth is spoken in this book,
in the story or the facts that it tells.
Grant me, O God, the freedom and the wonder to see Your creation
from inside the mind of another.
Amen.