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A spiritual comment and prayer to begin the day with Rev Dr. Joel Edwards

Good Morning.

Errol Rowe tracked me down on Facebook. We hadn’t spoken for over 50 years. But it was the photo he sent which reignited the old friendship we shared all those years ago between the ages of 8 and 15. It was then that I realised that Errol qualified as my first best friend.

The virtual reunion made me wonder about the mysterious chemistry of friendship.

Social scientists describe 4 types of friendships: acquaintances, friends, close friends and best friends.

But deep friendships involve more than mutual respect or even affection. I suspect that the mystery has something to do with the cavern of shared experiences and deep secrets. In this sacred space, each may hold the other in dangerous and unspoken oaths of loyalty.

Literature is filled with such deep friendships: Shakespeare’s Hamlet and Horatio, or Emily Bronte’s Cathy and Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights. If you like, you could add Bonnie and Clyde or Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.

In the Bible Jonathan, King Saul’s son shared such a deep- secret friendship with David, his father’s enemy.

And incredibly, so did Jesus and his disciples. ‘I’m calling you friends, Jesus told them, for everything that I have learned from my Father, I have shared with you.’

As I discovered with Errol, even with the dormant decades, this kind of friendship has the power of resurrection.

Jesus,
Who has chosen to call your followers friends,
We think of those who are friendless today.
May we be the solution to their loneliness.

Amen

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