Agape for a friend

I finished a rough draft of Chapter 3 of my book. That helped me develop even more deeply my understanding of agape as I examined Rom. 12:9-19a and Gal. 5:13 & 22.

This 3rd Step in the 7-step agape prayer practice is about holding in prayer a friend and then a family member.

Part of the deepening of understanding was expressed this way: “As you practice this for many days, try to find a deep sense of your relationship with this person strengthening and growing. If this person is geographically near enough that you can be with them, then let this prayer practice lead to action -- to the power of agape actually flowing to this person when you are with them. Over the course of several months, you should do whatever is necessary to deepen your relationship. But if you are not geographically near this person, don’t let that be a problem, because God’s agape is not limited by space or time. The important point for you is to visualize what it would be like for this person to receive God’s agape, no matter where this person is. This works because you are praying with the attitude of spiritually following agape as it flows in the person’s life.

“Because some relationships that have developed over many years go through different periods of agreements and disagreements, and there may even be times of difficulties or even hurt feelings, you may experience, during this practice, the surfacing of memories that carry with them confused feelings toward the person. If these feelings begin to interfere with your sensing the flow of agape, then you may want to stop the practice long enough to work through any sensation of blockage. In fact, if a memory surfaces of some act that requires forgiveness, then you may actually need to contact the person and seek whatever forgiveness or reconciliation is required. This is necessary because you need to be completely honest with yourself in order to be honest with someone else. But especially, you need to be completely honest with yourself in order to be able to be open to the divine Presence. You need to be honest with yourself in order to truthfully experience the flow of agape.”

Then when I got into the part about holding a family member in prayer, I was able to look back over my family memories, and also I reflected on watching children grow and realizing how completely vulnerable human beings are in the first year of life. All humans literally could not survive without some form of nurturing. Our utter dependence on others is established at the beginning of life, and it is meant to continue on throughout our lives. All attempts to deny that we depend on one another can lead to very destructive behavior in society. If we don’t learn trust and patience very early and then don’t continue developing that into adulthood, we end up having a lot of problems relating with other people.