Anyway, I bought a Book of Common Prayer. Why, when I'm neither Anglican nor Episcopalian? Well, I decided it was something we should have in the house, simply from a historical perspective. After all I have Karl Marx and Charles Darwin in the house for historical teaching purposes, and the prayerbook is much more useful than those two.
Secondly, I've been thinking about praying the psalter, and I wanted someone else to divide the psalms up helpfully for me so I could just move a marker instead of having to go through my Bible and parse out how many psalms to read a day. Yep, I'm that lazy.
Thirdly, I wanted a reliable calendar of the church year, that was meant for Protestants. Not a lot of those floating around that aren't derivative from the prayerbook
Fourthly, it was cheap.
But get this! I found this gem in there, under "Prayers for the sick, in the morning":
This is another day, O Lord. I know not what it will bring forth, but make me ready, Lord, for whatever it may be. If I am to stand up, help me to stand bravely. If I am to sit still, help me to sit quietly. If I am to lie low, help me to do it patiently. And if I am to do nothing, let me do it gallantly. Make these words more than words, and give me the Spirit of Jesus. Amen.
How about them apples? There's something to think about each morning.
The book also contains all the parts for marryin', buryin', baptizin' and holiday services. So. You know. I'm covered in case there is some kind of Terminator-esque disaster and I'm the lone person left who has any knowledge of religion and I'm called upon to do a postapocalypic wedding... you know, if there are no men left in the community except the dude getting married.
Ok, so it won't happen. It's still nice to have the book.
Okeydokey, me and Jonah are off to pray the psalms together...
Cheers,
Breanna
P.S. Well, Eugene Peterson tells me that Jonah's prayer in the belly of the fish is a crazy quilt of phrases he stole from the Psalms. Apparently he would have prayed them through routinely. Peterson points out this was common practice for all sorts of Christians for thousands of years, until lately when we all became obsessed with things like the Prayer of Jabez. Not sure I really know how to pray the psalms, but at the very least I can stop at the selahs and say "me too". I'll let you know how it goes.
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