Just for Today

We praise Thee, O God;

We acknowledge Thee to be the Lord.

All the earth doth worship Thee, 

the Father everlasting.

To Thee all angels cry aloud; 

the heavens and all the powers therein.

To Thee cherubim and seraphim continually do cry, 

"Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Sabaoth;

Heaven and earth are full of the majesty of Thy glory."

The glorious company of the apostles praise Thee.

The goodly fellowship of the prophets praise Thee.

The noble army of martyrs praise Thee.

The holy Church throughout all the world doth acknowledge Thee;

The Father of an infinite majesty;

thine honourable, true, and only Son;

Also the Holy Ghost the comforter.

Thou art the King of Glory, O Christ;

Thou are the everlasting Son of the Father.

When Thou tookest upon Thee to deliver man,

Thou didst not abhor the virgin's womb.

When Thou hadst overcome the sharpness of death,

Thou didst open the Kingdom of Heaven to all believers.

Thou sittest at the right hand of God, in the glory of the Father.

We believe that Thou shalt come to be our Judge.

  We therefore pray Thee, help Thy servants,

whom Thou hast redeemed with Thy Precious blood.

Make them to be numbered with Thy saints in glory everlasting.

O Lord, save Thy people, and bless Thine heritage.

Govern them and lift them up forever.

Day by day we magnify The; 

And we worship Thy Name, ever world without end.

Vouchsafe, O Lord, to keep us this day without sin.

O Lord, have mercy upon us.

O Lord, let Thy mercy lighten upon us, as our trust is in Thee.

O Lord, in Thee have I trusted; let me never be confounded.

 

This prayer, this "Te Deum Laudamus" is my morning prayer. It's a mouthful, and I like it.

I start out most of my blogs, or a lot of them, anyway, about my inability to focus; my anxiety attacks and my mental, emotional, and spiritual ADD. And when I come to pray in the mornings, I get some pretty bad flair-ups. I've long known that wrote prayers and liturgies were created for this pernicious human condition--they are memories and truths that ground us and center us when the external world is shaking up faster than a scale 10 earthquake. When I read "Eat, Pray, Love" last month, I liked Gilbert's brief history on the rosary--the beads that give our physical  hands something physical to count while we paradoxically train our spirits towards God.

 

Personally, I don't have a rosary, but I have come to treasure this prayer for the same reason.

Every time I read it, my mouth gets a little garbled. There are a lot of Thou's and Thee's mixing with ph-  and sh- sounds and st- sounds. I usually stumble a couple of times. But really I keep coming back for those Thees and Thous because frankly, they're not about me. And as I get older, I really need prayers that are not about me.

It goes back to a basic poetry principle--something I learned from Dr. Peterson in sophomore English in college. When you read poetry, you, the reader, are not in fact in charge. No sir. Your job is to read the text like the author wanted you to. Which means you have to listen. Oh, and you have to read it aloud. It does you no good because then you'll just stick inside your own head and commit all kinds of literary heresies with meaning. No, no, to be read correctly, poetry must be read aloud.

Because when you read it aloud (more than once, I might add) you'll notice a rhythm, patterns of the words, that guide you to the author's intended emphasis. We think most poetry stinks, I think, because we're never quite sure what it's about. I think it's because it remained inside our own heads and we do not listen to the emphasis the author is making.


The "we" (and you'll notice "I" is never used), is subservient. It may be the subject of some sentences, but it certainly is not the direct object, and most of the time the direct object comes first, and the subject comes second.

It's one of the few times that grammar can actually excite me. It's magical.

I love this because it reminds me of Who is in charge, Who is the point of all things, the direct object of all things. I have a pretty bad habit of making myself the point of my concerns, the subject and the direct object of my days, and my prayers. These words shift my focus and my priorities. As I mouth these truths, I remember Who is the King of Glory, Whom the earth worships; Who is the Savior and the Comforter.

 

This is my daily prayer and my daily reminder.

 

 

When My Hands are Weak

Things have been a little full.

This past week was a slam-and-hit-the-ground-running kind of week for both the husband and myself. Between his work and mine we agreed that the past week seemed more like a past month or three. Throw in the achingly cold record temperatures and the accompanying cravings, inactivity, and weight-gain that follows, and yeah, crazy week.

Not to mention that when I get physically uncomfortable, this often translates into emotional and mental discomfort as well--a pervasive antsy-ness coupled with anxiety. It was enough to nearly immobilize me on several days, taking me hours to do something I should have knocked out in 20-30 minutes.

Oh yeah, and I had a BUNCH of writing to do. Nothing like looming deadlines, cold weather, and anxiety to put me in a state of mental constipation to rival a Wonder Bread diet. I strained as best as I could and mechanically produced the required word count. But all weekend I was sore, angry, and frustrated with myself as I resentfully refused to open my email or reread anything I had written. I was exhausted.

But as I sit down this morning, already having wandered around, had a thorough breakfast, and now drug myself to the computer to face myself again, I see a verse that I found a few weeks ago that now has a semi-permanant home on my desk. It reminds me of Who I write for, Who I live for, and what makes it all matter:

Strengthen the weak hands, and make firm the feeble knees. Say to those who are of a fearful heart, 'Be strong, do not fear! Here is your God. He will come with a vengeance, with terrible recompense. He will come and save you.' Isaiah 35:3-4 (MSG)

Scripture is full of good, meaty, weighty metaphors--ones that sometimes we're all too quick to pass over as merely "spiritual," but I love when it hits on an image like this, that's both spiritual and physical: "weak hands...feeble knees...fearful heart..." Surely I'm not the only one who relates to this? How many times have we been nervous, and our hands were shaking, our knees were the consistency of sand castles, and our hearts literally pounding? And all of it caused by something--whether an identity crisis, a public speech, or a relationship confrontation. And yet, we can be assured, "God will come and save you."

I'm not saying that He'll whisk us out of the problem, but I love that encouragement, "Be strong, do not fear!" That thing you're actually afraid of? Well, you don't have to be afraid of it. God will save you--whether from it or through it--but He'll be there.

I need this message when I sit down to write and all my accusers come to me, saying I'll never do it right. I need this message when I've humanly messed up and simply need to walk backwards to make it right. I need it after a hard day, when I'm not sure I've done anything worthwhile. This fear, these weak hands, these feeble knees, need saving, and as I look at this verse I'm reminded of the truth of Who saves me. Not me, but God.

So I'm taking that with me today.  Time to start writing.

In with the New

Ooh, I did it, and I'll probably have to do it again. Scratch out the date and rewrite it as the new Star Trek-sounding number of 2014. Happy New Year- that special time when we reflect on the past year, make resolutions for the new, and spend a lot of time erasing and rewriting the date.

How were your holidays? I honestly like hearing about how other people spent their holidays, mainly because they were never "fine"--you know, that catch-all word we use for most of our days. No, no, for holidays we have so many "perfect" expectations of them, that they were either magically good or terribly bad. So that means there's always a good story involved. So sit down and tell me yours.

Mine were okay, very nice in some respects and stressful in others. I missed my brother terribly this Christmas (he and his wonderful wife-to-be spent Thanksgiving with us and Christmas with her family). I'm 30 and this was our first season apart. Old habits die hard, and it just felt a little off.

My husband and I did have two wonderful Christmas days-- one with his family the Sunday before and the day-of with my parents. Lots of incredibly calorically-filled delights were consumed, lovely gifts exchanged, and time spent with loved ones--loved ones like Jennifer Ehle and Collin Firth, because I lost my dinner Christmas night and was on the couch trying to break a fever for 36 hours after that. It's a good thing Pride and Prejudice is 6 hours--perfect for the sick bed. I don't mind the excuse to be on the couch, but it's Christmas--I would have done that anyway. I just would have liked to be conscious while I did it.

After rallying both health and spirits, Nathan and I packed up to visit his family in the metropolis of Ina, Illinois (town of 300...wait, 600, if you include the Federal Prison's census), followed by New Year's Eve with my brother and fiance in Cincinnati.Sufficient to say, it was a whirlwind trip through the Mid-West, but we loved every minute.

Now it's January 2nd and it's back to both work and reality rather than the past week's dream of holiday festivities, twinkling lights and calories that don't count (right?). I'm always so sad to see the holidays go, but no matter whether they were elegant and perfect, or a little bumpy like this year's was,  I love the feeling of newness that the time off and away and differences provides. Sick or not, I haven't written, planned, or strategized or edited the entire past week, and it was a good thing. I think I'm ready to get back into the swing of things and can't wait to see what this new year holds. Happy 2013! Argh, 2014. You know what I mean.