Monday Morning Musing: Paths Untrodden

So many people I love are walking difficult paths lately: illness, losses of many kinds, uncertainty, fear, indecision, betrayal. When I remember them in my prayers it is hard not to let my love for them lead to desperate, begging petitions for their well being. Of course, it's okay if that's how my prayers land; it doesn't impact their outcomes and God, who is very busy with things like watching us kill one another in multiple ways, still hears my pleas.

But, dang. It feels like so much. Tonight we finally took down the Christmas trees. We would have normally done that on the 12th night, but the festivities surrounding my Installation meant we waited a couple of days. Our 'main' tree was so beautiful this year: a Nordman Pine, it had the perfect "shelving" of its branches, making space for ornaments to really shine. It was a sorry ending to haul it out to the curb and hold the flashlight in the cold while Bruce sawed it into pieces. It felt a bit like a sad movie or a horror film for evergreens.

Sister Monica Joan in the BBC series Call The Midwife says that "The liturgy is of comfort to the disarrayed mind. We need not choose our thoughts, the words are aligned, like a rope for us to cling to." I love this. When I don't have words the liturgy of the Church offers them to me. Oh, what glory.

For this cold January night, two prayers, one from Vespers (Evening Prayer) from Evangelical Lutheran Worship and one from Compline in the Book of Common Prayer. If your path seems untrodden or lonely, know that there are those keeping watch with ancient words.

O God, you have called your servants to ventures of which we cannot see the ending, by paths as yet untrodden, through perils unknown. Give us faith to go out with good courage, not knowing where we go, but only that your hand is leading us, and your love supporting us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Keep watch, O Lord, with those who work or watch or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous, and all for your love's sake. Amen. (A prayer from the liturgy for Compline)