Prayers inspired from "Aquainted with the Night" by Robert Frost

Acquainted with the Night

Robert Frost

I have been one acquainted with the night.
I have walked out in rain -- and back in rain.
I have outwalked the furthest city light.

I have looked down the saddest city lane.
I have passed by the watchman on his beat
And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet
When far away an interrupted cry
Came over houses from another street,

But not to call me back or say good-bye;
And further still at an unearthly height,
A luminary clock against the sky

Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right.
I have been one acquainted with the night.

Obscureness

O God of all creation, both light and dark we come a seekers and children looking to you. But often wondering what about the times when you are silent, when our wells run dry, and our spirits ache for you to return to us again.  We do the prayers, the readings, the meditations, the reflections, but still not even a whisper of your voice. O help us through this time of obscureness and give us the faith and hope to keep listening for your voice and to feel your light in our times of darkness. 

Give Us Strength

For the times when we all have known the darkness of night, without knowing the promise of the dawn, give us strength. When the darkness persists even in joy, give us strength.

 When we see those in darkness, give us strength.

To sit with them in darkness and give them rest, give us strength

 Lead us to peace in the times of darkness, give our hearts respite, give us strength.

Give us the courage to keep walking in the dark without light, give us strength. God lover of our souls help us to remember this in our times of darkness. Amen

Written By Betty Gannon 2012

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"take the yoke"

       In the ordinations that I have attended a district superintendent says to the newly ordained person ‘take the yoke of Christ’. Then places the stole with all of its weight of history, tradition, and responsibility yoked with it. Being not yet ordained I can not where the traditional stole, I don’t have vestments, or a collar none of what one might think are the traditional trappings of the outward appearance for ministry. But in the past few months I have been yoked with a stole of sorts.

            In working at the hospital I was issued a badge on a lanyard that I wear around my neck that gets me into the places that I need to get to be present for my patients.  Often especially at the start I felt like this responsibility was all to much and not for me. But I started to gradually feel that maybe somehow I sort of was figuring out what I was doing. And  I was building relationships with patients, and important relationships too. Then I got hit.

I was devastated and deflated and traumatized. But my more prevailing feeling was anger that getting hit had given me reason to not see the patients who asked to see me.  Over that weekend with the consul of a good friend I realized that that lanyard issued to me was a sign of something else demanded of you at ordination ‘take thou authority’. My authority as a representative of God was more important then my fear. Because fear is easy but courage is more of a statement of the character of the God I know.  It might seem silly to see this badge and lanyard as a sacred object, the first of many vestments to come. But with it I come with the knowledge, wisdom, tradition and faith that has sustained people for millennia. That God is with us and loves all.

Surprising Theologians

           So this morning I went to the hospital, and happened upon a remembrance for September 11th and all the chaos in the world. At a time of sharing for the patients they where asked to tell what caused them stress. The stories put a knives in my heart, but in spite of all of the pain and suffering and trauma that I heard there where so many gems of hope.
        One patient expressed how she understood that life and death where both gifts from God and that we needed to see them that way. She continued on to explain that God will take care of us and upon death all of our questions about religion will be answered when we meet God. Another patient proclaimed that we needed to be thankful for every moment and to dream. The director of chaplaincy services reminded us all that the world outside of the hospital was chaotic everyone could help each other.
        It was pleasantly surprising to me to hear people who are not trained at a seminary level to be theologians know more, and have the assurance of what they said in there hearts. Maybe once you obtain certain knowledge you start to lose the ability to dream that answers do not need to be in books, or contained in the answers of those with PhD’s or M.Div’. Assurance is the knowledge that Grace is yours and Grace is like oxygen. You don’t always remember how much you need it, but its always there for you when you want it (all the time).

Photo From Shane Rounce

The Yo-Yo effect

With seminary hopefully starting back up this week, pending Irene and her path. I do have an announcement though that I am no longer fully itinerant as I was last year as I have moved full time to school. Figures my first weekend is a hurricane. Also a display of Gods sense of humor, I was supposed to preach at my new church tomorrow. Yeah about that…

Anyways doing hurricane prep reminded me of a discussion we had in bible study two springs ago. The discussion was when we give something to God but then we take it back or the yo-yo effect. A lot of people when natural disasters strike say its God trying to tell us something, that we are naughty, or not listening to God or not acting with God’s intent. I don’t buy it, never have and likely never will. I do however think that the disrespect we are showing the earth has an effect upon the wacky weather lately. But back to the point.
On Thursday I moved in and went to dinner with a peer and it was great. She needed to stop at the grocery store here in town. Going in it was already pandemonium. Something in my mind told me to get water then, and it was a darn good thing I did. Yesterday I went to go out to prepare and to get food to um eat next week after the storm, and a few other odds and ends. Holy cow people, let the mass panic ensue. People pushing shoving, practically dive bombing items.
Now I’m all for being prepared as my roommate and I have stowed water all over the place in the apartment. But this gets me to thinking God created and is creating and the animals are taken care of, so surely we are also going to be taken care of. Maybe we should collective panic less and plan more. Listen if you’re in an evacuation zone and get the hell out*. But be nice to one another and try to love the stupid people who do stupid things in a storm. But above all try to learn to trust and to not yo-yo.




*to quote Gov. Christy

Change Comes

I have been thinking a lot about transition both with the ending of my first year of seminary, moving to NJ and oh yea taking my first job at a church. This means that I am leaving my home church, and well this has left me conflicted. Both joyful and excited but then also sad and scared (thankfully not as terrified as I was for seminary), sometimes just one at a time and other times all together. I have been singing the first few lines from “She comes sailing on the wind” lately as it has been both an earworm to me and I think a way as to put some words to the way I have been feeling.


“She comes sailing on the wind,
her wings flashing in the sun;
on a journey just begun, she flies on.
And in the passage of her flight,
her song rings throughout the night,
full of laughter, full of light, she flies on.”

Now I know that this is about Sophia, AKA the Holy Spirit but I think that it also fits for me at this moment. I aspire to unfurl my wings and to light the world, full of joy and laughter. My song (I’m not much of a singer) well maybe not musical will hopefully proclaim the good news to the world and remind people that it is a story of love, not hate, not separation. But love.
Stepping out to give yourself the space to unfurl the wings takes a lot from many different areas of skill, and it takes courage. I hope that I allow myself to claim the space to do just that, to show, to tell, and to be love.
The other thing that I like about this song is that it gives us something tangible to link the Holy Spirit to, the wind. Being itinerant means that sometimes you are like the wind, moving this moment, but not the next. One does not always get to know where the wind blows but sometimes we get to know it is.

(my additional refrain to the lovely song)
Change comes sailing on the wind,
Not always knowing what’s to come,
On a journey, continuing on
With the passage of time,
A song of love fills the air
Full of joy, full of the unknown, change comes

Seeing the Wind

With to day being Pentecost and all and being done with my first year of seminary a month I have had a lot of time to think. This week I was at the New York Annual Conference of the UMC. Being a general conference year we voted on a lot of things. However for the first time I knew that I was able to provide answers to questions, I was the knowledgeable one. I'm not completely sure what happened between 2010 conference and 2011 that I became one with wisdom.


Yet this still makes me think about what someone said to me at the Drew lunch, 'don't rush seminary, because you will miss it when your gone'. Many people have said something along those lines to me but like the former dean said at the retirement of the academic dean 'don't be afraid of the next stage of life'. So maybe I have come to realize that I am a next stage of this adventure and have grown into what this stage entails.

You do not see the wind, but you know that its there. This is how it is with the Holy Spirit. You see the effects that it has on the world how it sweeps into places and pepple and clears the cobwebs away. Although the spirit can run amok sometimes its all for reasons we can't see but we know the effects. Maybe this is the reason why.

todays thought

Joan: Let's... let's say you're God.
Cute Boy God: Joan, I am God.
Joan: Okay, well, let's see a miracle.
Cute Boy God: Okay. How 'bout that?

Camera pans to a large tree nearby. Cute Boy God stops beneath it.

Joan: That's a tree.
Cute Boy God: Let's see you make one.

Last week I had to go to the Dr's and I ended up getting x-rays of my foot and they reveled that something is quite wrong with my foot. But I had to contain my excitement of my continued wonderment of X-rays. I've had at least a dozen in my life they should not be that amazing to me. But yet still I view them as miracles that have all kinds of good linked to them