Monday Morning Musing: Uneasy rest

Lately, a restful night has been something that has not been easy to come by. The cares and concerns that my spirit carries become weightier in the shadows of sleep. This has also meant that I am often tired during the day. I know this will pass.

Until then, I've been trying to be intentional about what I do or don't do before bed. Reading instead of any screens. Praying instead of worrying. Warm baths and lavendar lotion. Deep breathing. Sometimes it helps.

There is a prayer I pray most nights before bed; I'm uncertain where I first came upon it, but I do remember when. I recall finding it, or it finding me, in January 2020, months before the pandemic. It became the final refrain to my day then and has remained as such:

O Gracious Giver of the Day,

bountiful has been my daily bread.

And in the heart of sorrows,

you have surrounded me

with grace.

I wonder, in addition to the worries and burdens of my own that I carry, if it might be true that the state of the world and the ominous implications of the upcoming presidential election are also unsettling my soul? And maybe the soul of our nation. I imagine that the grief of those living in war torn places has filled the air we pray in. That the prayers of grieving and hungry and frightened parents and partners and children linger around us, heard only with the ears of our hearts. I can only begin to imagine what our own country might descend into if we again elect a person who is without a moral compass, whose priorities are power and wealth for himself, and nothing for anyone else. What has it done to us as a nation when almost half of us have pledged to follow someone so blindly just to prove the "other side" wrong? We are forever changed and hardened.

No wonder rest seems hard. Even when I sleep, I often do not rest.

Here is a prayer for night that I found from John Philip Newell:

That from our depth new life emerges

thanks be to you, O God.

That through our body

and the bodies of people everywhere

heaven's creativity is born on hearth,

children of eternity are conceived in them

and everlasting bonds of tenderness

are forged amidst the hardness of life's struggles,

thanks be to you.

That in our soul

and the soul of every human being

sacred hopes are hidden,

longings for what has never been are heard

and visions for earth's peace and

prosperity are glimpsed,

thanks be to you.

For those near to us who are in turmoil this day

and for every family in its brokenness,

for the woundedness of our own life

and for every creature that is suffering,

O God of all life, we pray.