From Morning Prayer for Today, Saturday, October 23, 2020
As we grow older, our satisfaction of life—human flourishing, if you prefer—is a byproduct of what we have given—or, withheld—of self to others. For those younger, give yourself to the help of others. This is a seed planted in early spring that will yield a great harvest in midwinter. Despite the blessings of age, there is the inevitable northeaster that whistles a dirge, an icy wind that portends an end of the season, and the removal of the wispy husk, so that the interior may be located and translated. These napping, aching days that were never, ever imagined, when we were wee lads—wrestling on the green-grass, and the cool earth of the schoolhouse grounds, strengthening yearlings in a familiar contest, to impress the disinterested girls. Now, we strain with sciatica sirens raging to just get up from a chair that has mysteriously grown lower in just the past few months! Our prayers turn to deliverance from our pain, from idiopathic fatigue, and an indecipherable fog that demands (and gets) precedent in daily living. In Christ this, we whisper a sacred prayer for physical deliverance: a quiet spirit to endure, an occasional relief, and a pleas for increased faith to say the Credo with personal expedition:
“And I believe in one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church,
From The Nicene Creed, First Council of Nicaea in 325.
I confess one baptism for the remission of sins.
And I await the resurrection of the dead:
and the life of the coming age. Amen.”
So, we who would live, cling to the Word that is Flesh, and speak the Scripture with winter-cracked lips:
Behold my affliction and deliver me, for I do not forget your law. Plead my cause and redeem me; according to your promise, give me life.—Psalm 119:153–154.