Four Years of Morning Watch

Four years ago, a core group of us gathered at church to do the livestreaming of the service when we could no longer gather as a large group--that was how we began doing it.  It was a small group, and we were spread out.  We also brainstormed other things we could do, like a Compline service.  I volunteered to do something in the morning.  One of the brainstorming group suggested that in addition to some sort of reading, that we have time for something creative.

At first I thought about choosing the readings, and then I thought, why do this?  I have Phyllis Tickle's The Divine Hours; she's done this work for me.  I did the readings for the day, took a five-seven minute pause to do meditation, writing, sketching, yoga, whatever gets us grounded for the day.  And then we came back for closing prayer, also from The Divine Hours, and I gave some closing thoughts, a benediction of sorts.

It hasn't changed much.  I do show the sketch I'm working on; my dad made a comment that he wanted to see what I was working on, so I started holding the sketch close to the camera. 

I've continued to do morning watch, and it's interesting to scroll back through a selection of posts that Facebook gave me when I did a search.  Here I am with much longer hair.  Here I am in a variety of rooms (the house near the beach, the downtown condo, our Lutheridge house, my seminary apartment, vacation/travel destinations).  Here I am with Christmas lights in the back, and here I am almost always with construction happening in the background.  I won't link to all those posts, as I'm almost sure it's only interesting to me.

This blog post tells a more complete story of the early days.  It also contains this link to the first day when I used Phyllis Tickle's work--on March 30, I had technical difficulties, so I didn't post that broadcast.  It's gotten 187 views.  Later broadcasts get much fewer views.  But I hear from people who find it meaningful, so I'll keep doing it.  Here's a link to this morning's broadcast.

To be honest, even if I didn't get encouragement, I'd probably still do it.  It helps me to stay faithful to this method of formation.