The request for protection in one Compline collect from the Book of Common Prayer for night laborers, the weeping, the sleeping, unsleeping, sick, weary, dying, suffering and afflicted extends uniquely beyond to one final group in need.
shield the joyous
The 2023 Christian Holiday
Contagious and isolating in my rural tiny home in the foothills of the Western Mountains right next door to a more well known town which in 1796 under the name of Bethel as per common practice was incorporated by European settlers despite habitation by the Abenaki, my personal Christmas celebratory norms were effectively cancelled due to external forces: Covid. In the Holy Land, in Bethlehem the traditional Christmas services were likewise cancelled: Bombings.
Seeing to first things first, we see that the list of first things is long.
Joy is no less another state of vulnerability.
Like praying. The powerless act.
A child can see
darkness and light to you are both alike - psalm 139, verse 11.5 BCP
if you look close, really home in on it
that we are to accept the real-life related norms at times necessitating other-destructive self-preservation as an expectation of successful cultural adult leadership, while punishment of children and other vulnerable individuals or groups for same is common. Either way, having agency, singular, and the plural, power tends to be invoked. I don’t hear those with these called having lack of faith much. I hear we pray for them without it.
For the reconciliation of conflicting requests for protection among opposing persons, peoples and aims Mark Twain, with invulnerable clarity, provides a clear-headed, witty explanation in his posthumous, copyright protected “Letter to the Earth” in the voice of “The Recording Angel, Department of Petitions, Jan. 20. to Abner Scofield Coal Dealer Buffalo, New York.”
I discovered the book at the annual yard sale in my town. I can’t remember when I last laughed the way I laughed hunched over this little paperback in the rain.
It transcends the cynical. No one who didn’t care deeply could write it, I feel.
Spoiler:
Ask only what’s good for business.
shield the joyless
We need nothing less
should we ask nothing more.
This is the whole Collect:
Keep watch, dear 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.
Collect, Compline, Book of Common Prayer p. 134
