I am late in posting this.  I knew that eventually I would suffer a gap in inspiration.  Let’s hope that that was the only time, particularly as I am committed to making up for it today.

Actually, inspiration did hit in the evening but I didn’t want to lose celebrating the moment just in order to write it down.  I already spend too much time documenting life instead of living it.  Last night, a very dear friend came over for a night of backgammon.  We have decided that we need to set aside time to just catch up and as we both enjoy the game, catching up over the board (sometimes with a drink) has become a favorite way to do that.

As we were playing and chatting, we talked about both consequential and inconsequential things as is our habit.  We seamlessly glide between the two, which often makes talking about the consequential easier.  In terms of years, our friendship is fairly young although our stories are connected via several threads.  In the space of a fairly short time, we have gone from being acquaintances to being confidants, and have even had a couple of blow up fights that indicate a true friendship.

Last night I had a moment of deep appreciation not only for this particular friend, but for all the friends with which I have been blessed.  Yet, its hard to not also think of friendships that have waned, are in trouble or have ended all together.  Some times the reason for those ends are clear, and sometimes not.

I was asked to write a prayer inspired by the story of the Prodigal Son.  Many of us know the story about the younger of two sons who insisted that his father give him his inheritance ahead of time.  Reluctantly, the father dis so and watched as his son disappeared and subsequently squandered his fortune.  When the son returns, broken and disheveled, the water takes him in without so much as reprimand.  The elder brother has words with his father, but the father’s forgiveness for his younger son is absolute and complete.

The message of redemptive forgiveness is clear–the metaphor of a father taking back a son regardless of his actions is one of the key tenets of the Judeo-Christian tradition.  But for me there is another message around personal reconciliation, not only with God but with my friends.  The elder brother is unable to celebrate the younger’s return and his animosity probably tainted their relationship for some time, if not forever.  I realized that when I believe I have been wronged, I am quick to shut people out preferring to let a friendship wither instead of being attended to.  But in doing that I am robbing myself of the potential richness of a reconciled friendship–I am exiling myself out of a sense of self-pity.

This doesn’t mean that I need to become a doormat and let friends take advantage of me.  But it does mean that when a moment of reconciliation presents itself, I need to be open.  Moreover, I need to treat every down turn in a relationship with the possibility that reconciliation will occur, because doing otherwise is shortsighted.  Reconciliation is more than just forgiveness, its moving back onto the path that you were on before the situation occurred.  I hope that I learn to not only actively seek reconciliation when I have been wrong but also to humbly accept it when someone else offers it to me.