[Written last weekend]
At the monastery where I am spending
the weekend, the monks pray fives times per day in the chapel. The
final prayer, compline, is the bedtime prayer. Of the ones I have
attended, it is my favorite.
I think that bedtime is a good time to
take stock of the day, and to let one's stripped-down, essential self
come out. In my life, night is not physically much more dangerous
than day (unless I end up walking home a lot later than planned), but
night is more dangerous in terms of emotional vulnerability, in the
potential for mistakes, in allowing fear to direct actions. Problems
seem bigger at night. Unrequited love grows unbearable. It is
soothing to crawl into bed at the end of a long, difficult day, pull
the blankets up, nestle down, close my eyes-- both because I need the
sleep and because I feel a certain safety in my bed.
Last night at compline the monks sang a
line something like,
'protect those who work while others
sleep, night and day.'
In New York City it is especially clear
to me that there are people working at all hours of the day. The
overnight subway workers, for instance. They are visible yet ignored
by the bleary-eyed folks going home, and forgotten by those already
at home. Most likely, the subway workers are watching out for someone
else, some loved one who is currently sleeping and who relies on
their wages to eat. But who watches out for the worker?
If I believed in a world where a God
protected those who other people pray for, then it seems like the
only mutualistic, compassionate system for the day workers to pray
for the night workers before falling asleep, and the night workers to
pray for the day workers before falling asleep.
Since I don't believe in that world,
what appeals to me about bedtime prayer, I think, is that it is an
expression of one human's care for another. Asking a god to protect
someone implies that you're going to try to protect them too-- even
if we know that our efforts to protect each other from some things
are futile.
Tonight, compline reminded me of
another bedtime prayer. A few years ago, I was in a brief
relationship with a close friend of mine, C. We slept in the same bed
less than a dozen times. When he prepared to sleep, lying under the
sheets, C would repeat the prayer he that he would say with his
family as a boy. I listened as he recited the basic prayer, the words
falling out quickly and fluidly, almost without him trying to form
them. At the end, he would ask God to bless the members of his
immediate family, one by one, ending with himself:
“Bless Mommy and Daddy and T and B
and C...
Which is endearing in itself. But
whenever he said this prayer in my presence, he would add my name:
“Bless mommy and daddy and T and B
and C and Kelly.”
Asking God for my well-being, yes. But
in doing so, making me a part of his
family, right up there
with his older brothers who I know he loves dearly. I felt especially
protected those nights, like someone had laid an extra blanket over
my body that was not bullet-proof, but that did protect from
loneliness.
:-)
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