SuperHusband prays morning and night prayer per iBreviary, and when I’m around I pray along with him. Usually he does the bulk of the reading and I get the responses, but this morning he is hoarse with a wicked sore throat, so I was the reader.
It’s a different experience. When he reads, I get to sit back and listen and my thoughts can range over the psalms as they come my way. As the person responsible for pronouncing all the words, in contrast, there’s no time for anything but quick thoughts. Unlike lectoring, especially for a big event, where you take time ahead to pray over the readings and practice them a bit, morning prayer is dashed off on the spot. Unlike praying one of the hours by yourself in silence, when there’s someone else waiting on you, you can’t just stop and ponder at will.
You get one shot at the reading, cold, no stops.
Another difference is that when an idea strikes you, it strikes and sticks and there’s no considering just how apt it is, because you’ve got to keep moving. But the imagery can be quite vivid. For example: Chickens.
The verse that got me was this:
Though the wicked spring up like grass and all who do evil thrive:
they are doomed to be eternally destroyed.
Our Lent down South takes place during true spring. Plum trees are in blossom, azaleas are working on it, the camellias of winter are fading away and the daffodils are long since awakened. The early grasses are bright and vigorous and lush, though they’ll give way in a few months to the stubbornly invasive weed-grasses of summer. All year long, the various grasses take their turns at conquest.
But they cannot withstand the ravages of the chicken.
If a chicken decides she wants a square of dirt, that square of dirt she will have, and everything in it. The chicken does not care what your plans are. The chicken landscapes as she will, and if you wish to make her cooperate with your plans, you’d best set firm boundaries delineating which earth is hers and which is yours.
And so, reading this morning, I could not help, of course, to imagine the Avenging Angel as a chicken. They’re both winged. They are both, to their prey, a fearsome specter. If ever a great chicken comes to destroy you, be afraid.
