This time of year in North Yorkshire Evening Prayer takes place in darkness. I love the remoteness and sense of being hidden within a dark church, but I have to put on the light to read my prayer book.
Prayer stands me at the edge of the temporal from where I can catch sight of the eternal. Prayer at a regular time heightens the sense of time passing while God remains changeless.
As the hymn writer says,
Through all the changing scenes of life,
In trouble and in joy,
The praises of my God shall still
My heart and tongue employ.
So one reason I pray is to mark time and eternity.
"Come bless the Lord, all ye servants of the Lord, who stand by night in the house of the Lord." Psalm 131:1
Comments