The Guiding Light

O God, who broughtst me from the rest of last night
Unto the joyous light of this day,
Be Thou bringing me from the new light of this day
Unto the guiding light of eternity.
Oh! from the new light of this day
Unto the guiding light of eternity.

Now I Lay Me Down . . .

God with me lying down
God with me rising up,
God with me in each ray of light,
Nor I a ray of joy without Him,
Nor one ray without Him.

Christ with me sleeping,
Christ with me waking,
Christ with me watching,
Every day and night,
Each day and night.

God with me protecting,
The Lord with me directing,
The Spirit with me strengthening,
For ever and for evermore,
Ever and evermore, Amen.
Chief of chiefs, Amen.

Scottish Blessing

May the blessing of light be on you - light without and light within.

May the blessed sunlight shine on you like a great peat fire, so that stranger and friend may come and warm himself at it.

And may light shine out of the two eyes of you, like a candle set in the window of a house, bidding the wanderer come in out of the storm.

And may the blessing of the rain be on you, may it beat upon your Spirit and wash it fair and clean, and leave there a shining pool where the blue of Heaven shines, and sometimes a star.

And may the blessing of the earth be on you, soft under your feet as you pass along the roads, soft under you as you lie out on it, tired at the end of day; and may it rest easy over you when, at last, you lie out under it.

May it rest so lightly over you that your soul may be out from under it quickly; up and off and on its way to God.

And now may the Lord bless you, and bless you kindly. Amen.

Lights Along the Shore

Sometimes the 'lights along the shore' are not lighthouses, per se, but places of quiet and refuge where one simply takes time to watch the setting sun and linger into the dark, comforted with the fact that sometimes we at least can choose to shine the light we have on the situation - or not.

Old Lights

I like things that are old - sometimes more than that which is new -- old paths and old lights that still work and are helpful, still, for today's travel.

Rather

I love my house, our property - but there are also places where sometimes I think I'd rather be living . . .

Dawn or Dusk

Leonard Sweet says that the Church today will either see the future as a new dawn and therefore embrace it as opportunity. Or, it will see the future as dusk and therefore hide from the darkness of the world.

Sweet believes that God will be in the future, with or without us,

Sloppy in Prayer

Scot McKnight, author of the helpful book: Praying With the Church, describes his first ever encounter with the Anglican Book of Common Prayer. Two things, he says, stood out in those days: (1) those prayers were mighty prayers and (2) lots of spontaneous prayers were, no matter how sincere, well … sloppy.

Where God Shows Up

“God always shows up in the most God-forsaken places.”

- Alan Roxburgh

How Rude !

"I've often thought people treat God rather rudely. Trillions and trillions of prayers every day, asking and pleading and begging for favors. ‘Do this; give me that; I need this; I want that.' And most of this praying takes place on Sunday, his day off! It's not nice, and it's no way to treat a friend."

- George Carlin, Napalm & Silly Putty (Hyperion).

Masked and Unmasked

Unasked, Unmasked

Always a mask
Held in the slim hand, whitely,
Always she had a mask before her face -
Smiling and sprightly,
The mask.

For years and years I wondered
But dared not ask.

And then -
I blundered.
I looked behind the mask,
To find
Nothing -
She had no face.

She had become
Merely a hand
Holding the mask
With grace.

- Helen Joseph ' The Mask'
Sunday Review, 13 August 1932

There comes a midnight hour when all must unmask.

- Soren Kirkegaard