There is a wonderful old hymn that I like to use to put myself to sleep at night. It was written by Thomas Ken (1637-1711) and is the source of the Doxology that we sing in church to the tune of Old Hundredth (see final verse). It is also sung to the Tallis Canon, which is the tune I prefer. But at night, I just recite it mentally, then go back to the top and follow its wise suggestions for meditating on the day. It goes like this:
Glory to Thee, My God
by Thomas Ken (1637-1711)
Glory to Thee, my God this night
For all the blessings of the light;
Keep me, O keep me, King of kings,
Beneath Thine own almighty wings.
Forgive me, Lord, for Thy dear Son,
The ill that I this day have done,
That with the world, myself, and Thee
I ere I sleep, at peace may be.
Teach me to live, that I may dread
The grave as little as my bed;
Teach me to die, that so I may
Rise glorious at the awe-ful day.
When in the night I sleepless lie,
My soul with heavenly thoughts supply;
Let no ill dreams disturb my rest,
No powers of darkness me molest.
Praise God, from whom all blessings flow;
Praise Him, all creatures here below;
Praise Him above, ye heavenly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.
Amen.
My meditations begin with “all the blessings of the light.” I think through the day starting with the morning, and I stop to thank God for the blessings I encounter in my memory journey through the daylight hours. Last night my mind-journey went something like this:
I recall seeing a pair of Gambel’s quail with three half-grown chicks outside my office window. They peck at the grain I scattered earlier in the yard, then they scurry across the driveway. Lying in bed, I hold in mind the memory of the little ones, a quarter the size of their parents but feathered out enough now so that the distinctive bull’s-eye circle on the male’s belly is starting to show. Fat feathered wonders – thank You, Lord, for creating them, designing them, delighting me with their presence beneath my window.
Then my mind moves on to thanksgiving for the small progress I made in the morning getting Laura’s Children launched – sending the title change to the Library of Congress, working on the copyright page, and having a little email discussion with Lee Byrd about Cataloging in Publication data. And thinking of Lee, any interaction with her is a blessing. How I thank You, Lord, for her friendship! Just being the safe person she is for me to talk to would be treasure enough, but besides that she is a wonderful writer, and she encourages me in my writing. And on top of that she gives me valuable publishing help from her years experience as a small press owner. I can spend quite a bit of time of a night thinking about that relationship and thanking God for my friend Lee Byrd.
And now as my memory marches on through the day, I recall dropping by Sam’s Club to pick up Grandma’s prescriptions and running into Ruben…”Hey!” he says, tapping my shoulder.
Twenty years ago our teenagers Erik and Jessica attended youth group at a poor country church with Ruben and some of his siblings. I hired Ruben’s mom to help me a couple times a month with housework and I learned more about the family. When Manuela got divorced in Mexico, she had six children to support somehow. Wages in Mexico were so low she would have to put the kids in an orphanage. In the U.S., however, she could make a week’s worth of Mexican wages ($35-40) in one day cleaning houses. So even though she didn’t speak English, she snuck her kids over the border in small batches, placed them in local schools, and started cleaning houses. They were so poor that at first that they lived in a converted chicken coop on a farm, and she had to walk 5 or 6 miles into town to get to work. About the time I met the family they had moved out of the chicken coop and into a broken-down old house set way back from the road in the middle of a cotton field. Parts of the yard were always wet and smelly, and I realized this was seepage from the overflowing cesspool. Yes, they were poor, so poor that when our home business began to falter and we went three months without work, I couldn’t bring myself to tell them we had no more work. Somehow I scraped up the money to pay someone from the family to work in the house or yard every week or so.
Ruben did well in high school but he couldn’t get a job or go to community college after high school because he was in the country illegally. It was not a decision he made – he was a minor when he arrived – but there he was, stuck. Fortunately when the amnesty program started, the pastor of the church had helped Manuela apply for a green card, and after a couple years, not long after Ruben graduated from high school, she got the card. We said we’d try to help Ruben get his documents through her. It was a long, heart-breaking process, with one disappointment after another. Lots of adventures obtaining necessary documents. Lots of trips to this office and that adviser… I won’t go into it all, except to say that it seemed really unfair…and such a waste of Ruben’s youth, when he was a hard worker, smart, principled, eager to learn and do something with his life. As I recall, it was 7 years before Ruben could finally get his documents and then he had to pay more than $1,000, an impossible sum for someone who couldn’t legally work. We lent him the money at no interest, and he worked it off doing yard work.
So now here he is at Sam’s Club – married, with twin 7-year-olds and a teenage stepdaughter. He tells me his stepdaughter just graduated from high school, with honors and a full scholarship to UNM in Albuquerque. What a delight to see Ruben, happily married, moving forward with the American dream, working as an appliance repairman. We exchange family news. He wants to know what all our children are doing, where they live, how many children they have. And I ask about each of his brothers and sisters. Some are living the American dream, too; some not doing as well.
Not every day has something as special as this unexpected meeting with Ruben to thank God for at day’s end, but every, every day as I recall the events of the daytime hours, I see that even the bad days include Blessings of the Light. If I don’t fall asleep recognizing my blessings and giving God thanks for them, then I move on to the rest of the hymn and work my way through it. Usually I tumble asleep into a divine sea of recollected gifts and goodness.
