A Kiss and a Curtsy

In the midst of clamoring dark news about war and death and disease, King Charles III and his wife, Camilla, recently visited the United States. Nightly broadcasts make our hearts lurch. Gasps almost unconsciously escape our lips. But for a few hours we glimpsed another world where well-chosen words were spoken, and quiet acts of honor at a memorial momentarily paused our throbbing souls.

With all the attention on the king and queen, I scrolled the internet to discover other bits of royal information. I found a picture taken just a few days before their visit to the U.S. that sent my imagination into overdrive. This photo shows the king at a Buckingham Palace reception honoring his mother, the late Queen Elizabeth. A woman approaches the king and, seeming to disregard royal protocol, she boldly offers the king a “double cheek kiss.” Looking closely at the photo, you see a small smile on the king’s face as the two meet. The king’s arms rest on the woman’s shoulders and, after the briefest exchange, the woman offers a polite curtsy to Charles.

This photo and the exchange, probably less understood by us untutored American “colonials,” can be rightly placed in the royal family photo album, not as a breach of good manners, but as cousins warmly meeting and greeting. The woman is Lady Sarah Chatto, daughter of Princess Margaret, and thus a second cousin to the king.

First a kiss. A display of familial affection. Than a curtsy. Recognition that the cousin is also the king.

How do you meet Jesus, THE King, as you enter your place of prayer? Has the meeting become a rote practice according to accepted, prescribed, learned protocol? Do you address Him with the same greeting time after time? Has the pattern of prayer remained the same through years?

Using your Holy Spirit-guided imagination, see your “cousin”—actually your brother—placing His arms on your shoulders in welcoming embrace. He smiles as He sees you approach. He anticipates not only the honor you offer, but the joy you both experience because of the relationship.

After grandly describing Jesus as our “great High Priest,” the writer of Hebrews declares that we can approach the “throne of grace with fullest confidence.” Jesus announced to onlookers that “anyone who does the will of God is brother and sister and mother to me.” (Mark 3:35) In prayer we meet.

A kiss and a curtsy. Good reminders for prayer.