May 6, 2012 | 8:00 a.m.

At the End of the Day

Victoria G. Curtiss
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 4
1 John 4:7–21
John 15:1–8

The highest form of worship is that of silence and hope.

Solomon ibn Gabirol

“Now I lay me down to sleep. I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.”

This is the prayer I was taught as a child to say every night when my mother tucked me in to sleep. It was also embroidered, framed, and hung on the wall in the bedroom my sister and I shared. I’m grateful the version I was taught was not this one: “Now I lay me down to sleep, and pray the Lord my soul to keep. And if I die before I wake, I pray my family attend my wake.”

The prayer I recited comes from a classic children’s prayer book from the eighteenth century, The New England Primer. I loved saying it, while my mother sat on the side of my bed. I felt a sense of security. But when I think about its content now as an adult, I wonder—does a child really understand that prayer? It seems a little scary, talking about dying in the night, and God taking my soul.

As I grew older and felt too old to be tucked in, I would snuggle under the covers and pray a single verse from the Bible, one that my fifth-grade Sunday School class learned: “Lord, forgive me my iniquities. Amen.” Now I can’t imagine that I understood back then what iniquities were, let alone was aware of how I, as a ten-year old, had sinned or could be forgiven. Still, those are the words I’d been taught to pray, so I used them. I wanted to connect with God before I fell asleep.

I knew something as a child that I often forget as an adult: it is wise to connect with God before we sleep. Psalm 4, which we sang earlier, encourages all of us to meditate, to pray and reflect, before we sleep. The King James Version reads, “Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.”

I’m guessing we all have sleepless nights. We often live our days at a frantic pace and then lie awake at night replaying the day’s events in our minds. We are a brood of insomniacs engaged in endless activity. The regrets of the past and the present, intermingled with the uncertainties of tomorrow, haunt our twilight hours, our dark nights, and our solitude. Nighttime becomes the season for second-guessing, piling worry upon worry, a time to be troubled about lack of support and the presence of opposition on the journey.

There is a Hasidic Jewish tale that describes the visit of a Hasid to Rabbi Yaakov Yitzchak, who was known as the visionary of his community. The Hasid came to complain about “alien thoughts” that would invade his mind and make prayer impossible for him.

“And what thoughts trouble you?” Rabbi Yitzchak asked.

The man then went on to catalog a great list of thoughts: His business was not as good as it could be. His customers owed him too much; his competitors were undermining his profits. His wife was not satisfied with their livelihood. His daughters needed dowries. His son was not the scholar he had prayed for. And so on.

When the man finished, the rabbi said, “Alien thoughts? My dear friend, these are not alien thoughts at all. Why, they are clearly thoughts that are quite at home in your mind.”

Alien thoughts, which really aren’t alien at all, plague us. They no doubt plagued the biblical figure David, who may be the author of Psalm 4. David certainly had reasons for a sleepless night. Before he became king, he spent many of his adult years fleeing from King Saul, who sought to kill him. Later he was vulnerable to the Philistines on the war path. He would have been well acquainted with musings that disturb us in the night.

Another rabbi, Rabbi Shapiro, says that there’s only one way to deal with these thoughts and that is to let them be. If you try to rid yourself of alien thoughts, you are only adding more dissatisfaction to your life, essentially setting yourself up for an additional unnecessary failure by attempting the impossible.

What we can do is follow the advice in Psalm 4. We are directed to be still before we sleep, to ponder whatever disturbs us in our hearts: “Commune with your heart and be still.” To commune with your heart is to be present to the thoughts and feelings that arise. Notice them, but don’t engage them. This is what is meant by “be still.” Don’t move; don’t run after the thought to investigate it or change it. Simply note it and let it be. By doing this—by essentially acknowledging your negative thoughts—you won’t get rid of them. The goal isn’t to get rid of anything but to be present to everything.

Another rabbi, Bob Alper, wrote, “What one discovers in stillness is not the end of such thoughts but the capacity to hold them without having them take hold of you. You are like the sky making room for clouds and yet not being attached to the cloudiness. And so we commune with our hearts in stillness.”

By communing with our hearts and being still, says the psalmist, we will be able to lie down and sleep in peace, for we will remember that God keeps us safe. Being silent—meditating or pondering in our beds or as we sit quietly in solitude or take a long walk alone or journal our thoughts—allows us to slow down and remember what has deeper meaning beyond our daily distractions. We can return to that place in which we sense God’s presence and realize that, at the end of the day, God guides, strengthens, and protects us.

I attended a Taizé prayer service in Oak Park last Friday evening. It included at least ten minutes of silence. This time was introduced in the bulletin with the words, “When we try to express communion with God in words, we rapidly reach the end of our capacities. A fairly long period of silence to listen to the voice of God deep within, therefore, is essential in discovering the heart of prayer.”

Nine members of Fourth Church participated in a silent retreat the weekend of Easter, sometimes praying aloud together and mostly praying or reflecting privately in silence. Several participants sought me out at different times wanting to talk about prayer. One wondered what is OK to ask of God in prayer. She had recently written a book and entered it into a competition. As much as she wanted to win, it just didn’t seem right to her to ask for that in prayer. She said, “God knows best, so I try just to pray, ‘What you want, God.’” That certainly is a prayer of surrender and obedience to God’s will. The ultimate prayer of obedience, which our Lord Jesus Christ prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane before taking up his cross, was, “Not my will but thine.” But before Jesus prayed that he had first prayed, “Take this cup from me.” He not only let God know his preference, but urged God towards a different direction. God knows both our shallow and deepest desires already, whether we articulate them or not. So why not be honest before God with our wants as well as our surrender?

If we follow the model of the psalmist, we can talk with God about what is on our hearts and minds and do so quite frankly and confidently. The author of Psalm 4 has no inhibition. With much pluck he starts out basically praying, “Hey God, listen up! You’ve helped me in the past when I was in trouble. Hear my prayer and do that again.” The one praying speaks in the imperative, making a demand of God, confident that God will deliver and that he is worthy of God’s response. He reminds God that in previous times of distress, God made room, or enlarged his heart. God had provided space, perspective, and openness where once there had been constraint, feeling cornered or hemmed in. He remembered this about God, which gave him confidence to approach God again.

Another church member who spoke with me on the retreat is someone who is quite comfortable with silent meditation and prayer. She confided in me that she recently had been asked to serve as a committee chair at the church and said she was terrified. Not because she didn’t know how to facilitate a meeting or provide leadership. It was because in that role she would sometimes need to pray out loud with the group. Her way of praying, or being with God, was often without words. She prayed more through her senses. She wondered if I could offer her some structure for how to pray aloud for a group.

Around Fourth Church it seems pretty common that church officers, who bring lots of professional expertise and intelligent thoughtfulness to their service, are uncomfortable praying out loud. If any clergy are present in a meeting, they are turned to often to do the praying. Perhaps that’s because most of us have not been taught ways to pray beyond what we learned as children.

Presbyterian author Anne Lamott says she has two ways to pray: “Help, help, help” and “Thank you, thank you, thank you.” Those two tracks are certainly prominent in prayer, for which we sometimes use fancier names like supplication and thanksgiving. I offered this structure to the newly elected committee chair as one approach. But I also said, “It’s also fine for you to invite the committee to join you in the way you are most comfortable praying, which is in silence.”

The psalmist said, “Ponder it on your beds, and be silent.” This not only means be still, but also wait. The power of nighttime may be in its stillness or the “luminous darkness” spoken of by Christian mystics. We pray at night at the conclusion of the day’s events. Ignatius of Loyola, who founded the Jesuit order of priests, developed a prayer called the Examen of Conscience, which may be said at the conclusion of each day. Ignatius said of all the spiritual disciplines, he considered this to be the most important. In the Examen of Conscience, one reviews the previous twenty-four hours, noting all for which one is grateful. Likewise, with a nonjudgmental perspective, one reviews the past day noting all those moments in which one was alienated from God or oneself or others. Then one articulates a confession of those moments and a desire for God’s help, newness, and forgiveness. Here, there are three tracks: “Thank you,” “I’m sorry,” and “Help me.” With a spiritual practice of this kind of daily or nightly review, we can deepen our awareness of how God is guiding and keeping us in the midst of uncertainties and burdens that life brings

“In the night I can take my rest. You alone keep my life secure,” we sang together. We may still pray, “Keep my soul, O God, whether I live through the night or die.” Human rest is an act of divine trust. Quiet, restful reflection at the end of the day may bring a new perspective and renewal of spirit, helping us regain a right relationship with God in trust. Before we fall asleep, we are invited to remember how God has been there for us in the past, lifted our hearts, and made us safe. By putting our lives in God’s hands, we open the possibility that we will sleep in peace, even if death may take us in the night.

God answers prayer. God gives breathing room in suffering. God is gracious. God is the source of our safety. May God bless you as you commune with your heart at the end of the day.

Let us pray:

Thank you, Lord, for another day, the chance to learn, the chance to play. This night when we lie down to sleep, I pray, O Lord, our souls to keep. Please, guard us, Jesus, through the night, and keep us safe ‘til morning’s light. But should we die before we wake, I pray you, Lord, our souls to take. And should we live for other days, I pray you, God, will guide our ways. Amen.