Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep by Tish Harrison Warren


“What I most love about this line—’and give hour angels charge over those who sleep’—is that it pulls together supernatural cosmic strangeness and the most quotidian of human activities: sleeping.” With that, and other carefully chosen words, Tish Harrison Warren proves once again in Prayer in the Night that she is a master of revealing glimpses of how our lives in the temporal sphere meet the eternal one.
In her opening note she tells us that wisdom is a “slow work”, and it is. Painfully so at various times and in various relationships in our lives. To guide us through this slow work, she walks us through the Prayer at Compline in The Book of Common Prayer:

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch,
or weep this night, and give your angels charge over
those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to
the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the
afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love's sake.
Amen.

She helps us to see how prayer and faith are related; “Faith, I’ve come to believe, is more craft than feeling. And prayer is our chief practice in the craft.” With each phrase or word of the prayer, she reminds us to whom we pray, of his goodness toward those for whom we pray, including ourselves, and our work that proceeds from this prayer. Works of belief, rest, struggle, as well as justice and mercy.

I could have, and practically did, underline the entire chapter, “Shield the Joyous”. I tend to see the dark and twisty side of life too easily. I practice pessimism as naturally as a child is afraid of the dark. To petition my Creator to “shield the joyous”, feels foreign to me. The other shoe always seems to drop and who am I to get in its way. But I miss the mark when I practice my faith this way. I miss “intentionally and habitually open[ing] [my]self to God’s unconditional love…and practice living in the reality that his love is deeper and more substantial than any need we could present to God.” The practice of joy and asking for it to be shielded “is a vulnerable and courageous choice.” It is the slow work of wisdom. Warren reminds me of know only who I am that can pray this petition, but the Father of whom I am asking.

As with Liturgy of the Ordinary, Prayer in the Night is a book to be read both in one gulp and then re-read slowly, thoughtfully and practiced. This is the first book I’ve read in 2021. I look forward to re-reading this throughout the year with pen and notebook in hand.

I received an ARC from the publisher.


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