Muddy Shoes

We (LCET's Chaplaincy team) spent an afternoon together today in prayer and fellowship to start of our new term. We brought back to mind a prayer of Sir Francis Drake's which has been a focus for meditation for LCET this year:

Disturb us Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we have dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us Lord, when
With the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new heaven to dim.

Disturb us Lord to dare more boldly,
To venture on wilder seas
Where storms will show your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.
We ask you to push back
the horizons of our hopes;
And to push into the future
In strength, courage, hope and love.

Dwelling upon this prayer we took a walk in the countryside, each of us in quiet contemplation, a lovely solitude amongst friends. This was a time of true peace for me, a wonderful refreshment for the soul.

As an aside, it is interesting that Myers Brigg has me as almost equal on the Introvert-Extrovert scale, with a slight tendency towards introvertion. It makes sense to me that my most peaceful times are when I am able to be quiet and 'alone' in the company of trusted others.