Almighty God,
we commend to your gracious care and keeping all the men and women of our armed forces at home and abroad.
Defend them
day by day with your heavenly grace;
strengthen them
in their trials and temptations;
give them courage
to face the perils which beset them; and
grant them a sense of your abiding presence
wherever they may be;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
- Amen.
This is a poem that our teacher put on the wall above her desk when I was in the third grade. On a large sheet of poster paper, written in huge square and readable letters, Silver sort-of watched over us most of the year. And not counting rudiments like The A-B -C Song, or nursery rhymes, this was the first “real” poem I memorized as a child.
I’ve carried the poet’s name – Walter de la Mare – with me all these years, I’ve read his oeuvre, and none of it has the same effect on me as this simple little poem about what the night time looks like. The words linger in my heart the same as Sandburg’s poem about Chicago and the fog “…walking in on cat’s feet.”
During the day – when we are awake – we fill the air around us with one type of prayer or another. Even the unexpected “Jesus!!” during a quick maneuver in traffic, or spilling a bit of food on our sweater. But at night: oh yes! we sleep and rest as much as there is sleep and rest to be had, and it would seem that the prayers walk around us like angels, like the moonlight in this poem.
The prayers see us.
Angels see us.
God sees us
Theirs is the vigil , then. At night, when our prayers fall away to silence and sleep, this must be what happens around us.
Keep the faith!
by Walter de la Mare
Slowly, silently, now the moon
Walks the night in her silver shoon;
This way, and that, she peers, and sees
Silver fruit upon silver trees;
One by one the casements catch
Her beams beneath the silvery thatch;
Couched in his kennel, like a log,
With paws of silver sleeps the dog;
From their shadowy cote the white breasts peep
Of doves in silver feathered sleep
A harvest mouse goes scampering by,
With silver claws, and silver eye;
And moveless fish in the water gleam,
By silver reeds in a silver stream.
As the skies move from daylight to dark, we come to the time of the day to hear my favorite words from the Book of Common Prayer, from the last prayers of the day – Compline.
The prayer that follows is from the New Zealand Prayer Book and speaks to my … interaction, both good and bad … with the night.
Years ago when I was in Intensive Care in the hospital and coming through my first medical experience of coping with a condition over which I had no control, I feared the night. My body changed sleep cycles so that I would stay awake through the darkness and sleep during the day. It all seemed even more scary to me in its irrationality until one of my clergy pointed out to me that it was this fear that came from my loss of control.
It’s tough for people to go through that the first time. And it’s even more tough for guys to go through it. (See my other writings in this blog on “guys”)
Now – having gone through that challenge of the mind and the spirit – those hours are a welcome refreshment to me. Even on the sleepless nights, the hours of darkness are when I can settle down, away from the distractions I can see, and open my heart to welcome the rest of the quiet evening. When medical stress pops up and changes my sleeping cycles for me, I accept the change of my hours for what they are. I no longer live in fear of that night and that darkness, but feel glad for what I have done with my days, I find the rest I need, and I move through the hours, no longer the darkness as a villain – as a reminder of death.
I find in the hours of night a great peace that reminds me of how I felt as a child, settling on a comfortable pillow, under a cool sheet or a warm blanket, sleeping in great anticipation of another fun day to come.
Keep the faith!
Lord it is night:
The night is for stillness.
Let us be still in the presence of God.
It is night after a long day.
What has been done has been done; what has not been done has not been done.
Let it be.The night is dark.
Let our fears of the darkness of the world and of our own lives rest in you.The night is quiet.
Let the quietness of your peace enfold us, all dear to us, and all who have no peace.The night heralds the dawn.
Let us look expectantly to a new day, new joys, new possibilities.In your name we pray.
- Amen
Thus says the Lord:
Does the woman forget her child at the breast
or fail to cherish her offspring?Even if she forgets,
I will never forget you.
(adapted from Isaiah 49:13-15, focusing on verse 15)
When we offer up prayers and meditations for our military personnel and their leaders, the best place to turn our thoughts is not to their work, not to the campaigns they have underway, and not to the success of our troops of the failure of “theirs.”
Such things are best left to others above and around us to decide.
Better to offer our thoughts and energies instead to the individual, to the job that they individually have to do, and that even in the least calm of times, calmer heads will prevail.
Almighty God,
we commend to your gracious care and keeping
all the men and women of our armed forces at home and abroad.Defend them day by day with your heavenly grace;
strengthen them in their trials and temptations;
give them courage to face the perils which beset them;
and grant them a sense of your abiding presence wherever they may be;through Jesus Christ our Lord.
- Amen.
(from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer)
Keep the faith!