I have a classmate from Sewanee who sends out a daily prayer email to a group from our graduating class. Every. Weekday. For the last the fourteen and a half years. This May will be the fifteenth anniversary of our graduation from seminary, and I think he’s only missed a handful of days, due to technological problems like a dead computer. His prayers include a bit of scripture, and a series of prayer cycles. We rotate one of the graduating members of our class every day. We pray for a different country in the world each day. We pray for the School of Theology at Sewanee, and another seminary, every day. And we pray for classmates and seminary faculty/staff who have died since we graduated. It’s remarkable, really. On the ten-year anniversary of these emails, we sent him flowers as a way of reinforcing how important his ministry to us is.
My most recent day on the prayer rotation was this past Friday. Right between Pappas and Roque, my spot on the rotation from the start. A few times a year we might hit reply and give our classmates an update. It’s good to hear how people are faring and what they’re up to. Whether they are retiring, or sending kids to college, or accepting new calls. Not everyone is still on the list. Sometimes people change email addresses and don’t remember to update the list. I did that for a couple of years, once. I finally got back on the list, but I missed it when I was gone. It’s easy to lose track of such things, even when they are important.
Like many clergy, some of the best friendships I have ever had were formed in seminary. It is one of those life-changing, intense experiences that draws people together. It is often only other seminarians (or clergy) who understand what it’s like to give up a “normal” life, pack your house and family up, and enter into the service of the church and all that comes with it. That makes such friendships extremely important. Yet, despite their importance, it is easy to let such friendships falter and fade. Life is busy. Ministry is busy. Kids come along. And before you know it, it’s been six months, then a year, then years, since you last talked to someone. This kind of fading in friendships is not unique to me or to clergy, however. It’s something we all deal with along the way.
As we continue the Wellness 2020: I Will with God’s Help initiative, I have made this month Friend February for this reason. Friendships are so important to our health – in all aspects; emotional, physical, and spiritual. You can use Google to see the plethora of articles extolling the virtues of friendships and their importance at all stages of life. And you can also find a large number of articles acknowledging how hard it is for adults to form and maintain friendships, particularly in the middle decades of life. As important as friendships are, they simply end up on the back burner because we get busy with raising kids, building careers, or taking care of aging parents. We also move from town to town, or our friends do, and distance complicates things too.
Social media is a great way to see little snippets of our friend’s lives, but for most of us, it will never be a substitute for actually spending time with our friends, or even speaking with them on the phone. Friend February is a gentle encouragement to reconnect with an old friend each week this month. We can think of people we haven’t seen or talked to in “too long”, (whatever that length of time is to you), and reach out to them via phone, or make plans to get together for coffee or lunch. I suspect that like me, you have friends you haven’t seen or talked to in quite some time, that you will be able to pick right up where you left off with them. Those are the connections I’m thinking about.
These friendships are good for us; they nourish in ways that few things can. It is important that we have people in our lives who know us and love us for who we are; who know our history; who we can be ourselves with. Jesus didn’t just have disciples, he had friends, friends he loved incredibly deeply, and without whom he could not have done all the things he did during his life and ministry. We must give thanks for our good friends, and then make time to continue to nurture these important relationships. I already know what a blessing this month will be for many of us in this regard!
Tom+
Most Gracious God, you called the varied elements of creation into relationship with one another as you shaped and molded this world; as you call us into relationship with one another, we give you thanks for friendships and all those who love us, and care for us. Friends share our sorrows and our pain and rejoice with us for our blessings. Watch over our friends and bless our friendships this day and every day, in the name of the One who is our Lord and Friend, your Son, Jesus Christ. Amen.