Cantica Gaudia

Advent: Monday Compline

Confession: Turn to us again, O God our Saviour,
and let your anger cease from us:
Lord, have mercy.

Show us your compassion, O Lord,
and grant us your salvation:
Christ, have mercy.

Your salvation is near for those that fear you,
that glory may dwell in our land:
Lord, have mercy.

Canticle: The simple heart finds no hard way.
Good thoughts have no barriers.
Deep in the illumined mind is no whirlwind.
Surrounded on every side by the beauty of open country,
One is free of doubt.
Below is like above.  Everything is above.
Below is nothing, but the ignorant think they see.
Now you know grace.  It is for your salvation.
Believe and live and be saved.  Hallelujah!

Reading: Like Gorky, I sometimes follow my doubts 
outside and question the metal sky, 
longing to have the fight settled, thinking 
I can’t go on like this, and finally I say
 
all right, it is improbable, all right, there
is no God.  And then as if I’m focusing 
a magnifying glass on dry leaves, God blazes up. 
It’s the attention, maybe, to what isn’t 
 
there that makes the notion flare like 
a forest fire until I have to spend the afternoon 
dragging the hose to put it out.  Even 
on an ordinary day when a friend calls, 
 
tells me they’ve found melanoma, 
complains that the hospital is cold, I say God.
God, I say as my heart turns inside out.
Pick up any language by the scruff of its neck, 
 
wipe its face, set it down on the lawn, 
and I bet it will toddle right into the godfire 
again, which--though they say it doesn’t 
exist—can send you straight to the burn unit.  
 
Oh, we have only so many words to think with.  
Say God’s not fire, say anything, say God’s 
a phone, maybe.  You know you didn’t order a phone, 
but there it is.  It rings.  You don’t know who it could be.  
 
You don’t want to talk, so you pull out 
the plug.  It rings.  You smash it with a hammer 
till it bleeds springs and coils and clobbered up 
metal bits.  It rings again.  You pick it up 
 

The Lord’s Prayer:

Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be your Name.
Thy kingdom come, thy will be done,
On earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses
As we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
But deliver us from evil.
For thine is the kingdom,
And the power and the glory,
For ever and ever.  Amen.

Prayer:  May the light around us guide our footsteps and hold us fast in the best and most righteous that we seek.

May the darkness around us nurture our dreams and give us rest so that we can give ourselves to the work of the world and of our hearts.

Let us seek to remember the wholeness of our lives, the weaving of light and shadow in this great and astonishing dance in which we move.

Going Forth: God, you shape our dreams. As we put our trust in you, may your hopes and desires be ours, and we your expectant people. Amen.