Oct 14 2019 Morning Prayer Hymn

To give and give, and give again, What God hath given thee; To spend thyself nor count the cost; To serve right gloriously

The Mission of St. Clare, that publishes Morning Prayer with the readings and prayers every day includes a link to a hymn to start the morning worship time. This morning’s song, started “Awake, awake to love and work”. Often, if I recognize the words, I click on the “play” button, and start my morning with a little hymn. I did not recognize these words, so I nearly didn’t click. But I did.

And it turns out, I know the tune with different words. The King shall come when morning dawns, the lark is in the sky. I don’t even think those words are in our current hymnal, which by now is nearly 40 years old. But in my head, that’s the right words with the right tune. It’s funny how music locks memories for me.

The third verse of the version linked in this morning’s prayer session includes the phrase, “To give and give and give again, what God hath given thee”. I so desperately needed to hear that this morning.

My son is in town visiting for a long weekend, from Boston. It’s a delight to have him here. I’m not sure if it’s his presence, or medicine, but my sick loved one has been really really agitated for about a week. Change is disruptive to all, especially the one who’s clinging to the world as we know it. They have been verbally abusive to all of us in the house, and last night, threw a glass on the ground out of sheer frustration. While often I can let it slide, this weekend has been hard, because I’ve been worried about them, while at the same time trying to protect my son from her abuse. By abuse, I mean name calling, vulgar talk, false accusations. It’s stinky.

And this morning, they woke up early, and said they were freaking out. The voice in their head has turned mean, and now has taken up with another voice, as opposed to being with my loved one. All of this is invisible to me, but is as real as the cold cup of coffee they’ve been coddling all morning. This morning, there were tears, and pronouncements that they cannot go on, and that the voices argued all night.

The sadness of my loved one, along with my impotence at doing anything about it is hard. And between their sense of defeat at the disease, and the words of this hymn, I’m both embarrassed by my anger, and have more resolve to keep going.   

This morning, I’m thinking about how God gives and gives and gives again, without counting the cost. Given all that is going on around me, I’m not being asked to do a fraction of God’s giving, nor does it have near the cost as is being exacted on my loved one. It is not fun, nor easy. But it’s also not something I need to do alone. But I do need to give and give and give again. And again.