Maxims of Friendship: God’s love language
… human friendship (is) one of God’s greatest gifts, mirroring the intimate relationship we have with God. Jim Manney
It used to be I would seek friends
who think, speak and vote like me
til I realized
I was not making friends with them
I was trying to make friends with me.
By grace alone I’ve been re-formed
to seek and see and savor
people as they really be
and I am blessed
by the gift of friends.
Some walk a mile or more my way
pointing to master-works
gravestones
and detours
refreshing faces of God.
I am learning to listen
listening to learn
buried in every bodied story
is the intimation
of divination.
This very morning a friend sent
a photograph, full moon’s ascent
another forwarded a plea
asking prayers for her dis-ease
I am learning to listen
listening to learn
discovering beauty I have not known
swallowing nails for the suffering I’m shown.
God’s lyric love language rings
multi-lingual
multi-faced
sung on the tongues
of friends.
Poem by Debra Asis
Jim Manney’s quote is found in to today’s selection in An Ignatian Book of Days by Jim Manney, a series of daily reflections from the Spiritual Wisdom of St. Ignatius of Loyola. Throughout the book we hear the voices of St. Ignatius as well as many great thinkers and writers, long gone and present day, each uniquely revealing the way of finding God in all things.And that is my intention; to find God/Divine Presence/Ultimate Reality in whatever presents itself to me each day in 2024.
Each day I read, reflect and write on the selection, hoping to articulate the ways in which I come to know God/Divine Presence/Ultimate Reality via personal experience, impelled by the leading of my inner life.
INVITATION
Would you like to join me? The book is accessible on Amazon. Let me know in the comments to this post and sign up to get an email whenever I post. I would love to read your reflections too, public or private messages welcome!
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Learn more about me at
https://www.debraasis.org
All words are generated by grace and the grit of a real human being,
Debra Asis
