User Reviews
Rating: really liked it
I read this on the heels of Liturgy of the Ordinary and I can’t help but feel Trish is a kindred spirit, I loved that she used examples from her own life without making the book about herself. I also wanted to hug her when she quoted the song Show The Way by David Wilcox which really sums up the book well and is a favorite song of mine which no one seems to know.
You say you see no hope
You say you see no reason we should dream
That the world would ever change
You say the love is foolish to believe
'Cause they'll always be some crazy
With an army or a knife
To wake you from your daydream
Put the fear back in your life
Look
If someone wrote a play
To just to glorify what's stronger than hate
Would they not arrange the stage
To look as if the hero came too late?
He's almost in defeat
It's looking like the evil side will when
So on the edge of every seat
From the moment that the whole thing begins
It is love who mixed the mortar
And it's love who stacked these stones
And it's love who made the stage here
Although it looks like we're alone
In this scene, set in shadows,
Like the night is here to stay
There is evil cast around us
But it's love that wrote the play
For in this darkness love can show the way
Now the stage is set
You can feel your own heart beating in your chest
This life's not over yet
So we get up on our feet and do our best
We play against the fear
We play against the reasons not to try
We're playing for the tears
Burning in the happy angel's eyes
For it's love who mixed the mortar
And it's love who stacked these stones
And it's love who made the stage here
Though it looks like we're alone
In this scene, set in shadows,
Like the night is here to stay
There is evil cast around us
But it's love that wrote the play
For in this darkness love will show the way
Rating: really liked it
As one who struggles with a consistent prayer life, I deeply appreciate the prayers that have been passed down to us through liturgy and practice. Tish Harrison Warren has taken the Compline prayer and expounded upon it in such an eloquent way. Each chapter is overflowing with the nuances that accompany this brief, but profound prayer. Included are discussion questions and practices that will bring the book to life for individuals and groups. I am forever changed by the reading of this book and am grateful for the many truths that have been communicated to me through the words inside. The Compline prayer is now a part of my daily practice.
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.
Rating: really liked it
The chapter on affliction is worth the price of admission. Warren does not shy away from tough topics on this book. Rather she makes the solid argument again and again, with plenty of sources to back her up, that in the suffering we find God.
Rating: really liked it
I recommend this book by Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren for anyone that has gone through a deconstruction of their faith, or rejected their faith because of different existential and philosophical reasons, or to someone who is going through a difficult season of grief, confusion, and loss. This book has certainly strengthened my faith in the goodness and love of Christ, and I found it immensely helpful, honest, encouraging, and a great affirmation of hope. It was very brave of Rev. Warren to write about the great grief she experienced after having a miscarriage, losing her father, struggles in her marriage, and how she was able to pray again, find healing, and how her faith was strengthened. These are some of my favorite quotes below from the book,
“Compline speaks to God in the dark. And that’s what I had to learn to do -to pray in the darkness of anxiety and vulnerability, in doubt and disillusionment, it was Compline that gave words to my anxiety and grief and allowed me to reencounter the doctrines of the church not as tidy little antidotes for pain, but as a light in the darkness, as good news.”
“Each day of our lives holds relentless beauty, mercy, grace upon grace-Babies are born healthy every day. Marriages recover from the depths of contempt. Many-not all- of us- awake each day with bodies that work. We can do good work, brew tea, take walks, breathe autumn air, and crunch leaves under our feet. We laugh. We dance. We heal. Cancer goes into remission. People recover from illness. Mangos grow. Dead coral reefs slowly regenerate. These things happen, and they happen by grace. They are gifts from God that we are called to receive with open hands.”
“Because good things to happen. A baffling part about walking with a God who does not keep bad things from happening is that it’s clear that he makes good things happen also-and often. God is maddingly unpredictable and free.”
“..The problem of theodicy cannot be answered. As Flannery O’Connor wrote it is not a ‘problem to be solved, but a mystery to be endured.’”
“Suffering strips away the self. This sounds terribly painful, and it is. But the meaning and object of suffering isn’t pain; it is to learn to give and receive love. God isn’t a sadist who delights using agony to teach us a lesson. But in the alchemy of redemption, God can take what is only sorrow and transform it into the very path by which we learn to love God and let ourselves be loved. This is the strange (and usually unwanted) way of abundant life- the dying necessary to bring resurrection.” -Tish Harrison Warren
Rating: really liked it
A luminous book. Warren is a companion in the dark, pointing to the light. Through personal stories and tried-and-true prayers of the church, she helps us learn to navigate with authenticity a world where things don't always go the way we'd like them to.
Rating: really liked it
“If Mary's son, the giver of all joy, knew anguish, my daughter will as well. So when I pray that God would shield the joyous, I am not praying that God will make all circumstances work in her favor or that her joy will never be mingled with grief.
Instead, we pray that God himself would shield us, that as lesser delights dissolve in the face of pain, we might slowly find where enduring joy lies. And we pray that far under the surface of our lives, however easy or arduous, there would be a deep source of joy, a constant current of love that will never run dry.”
I’ve been trying to understand what it means that God does not primarily want us to be happy. Purity of heart and real holiness is tied up in that understanding somehow, because there are far, far greater goods than having what we want or feeling happy.
I mostly say that here because it’s a bone I have to pick with my current church and their functional theology. I love Tish, I love her writing and her enjoyment of the pleasures of life. This book is full of that enjoyment, but it’s also really compassionate, and really grounded in a long history of Jesus followers who knew what it meant to take up their cross. Per crucem ad lucem. Through the cross to the light.
What’s most important about this book is that it’s very self aware, and very adamant that God does not give us crosses for the hell of it (pun intended). The love of Jesus is so sure and trustworthy, even when we go through suffering.
I’m going to start a sad but holy girls club. Come join if you’re having a sad girl summer but know there’s holiness hidden in it. I’m kind of joking but also kind of not.
EDIT: two of my best girls have already said they’re down to join
Rating: really liked it
While I'm not an official member of the Renovare Book Club, this season, I have chosen to read their book selections. This was the third book of their four for this season, and by far the best one, yet. I am so glad I read this book.
In Prayer in the Night, Tish Harrison Warren takes one of the prayers used for Compline (the fixed-hour prayer to be prayed before going to sleep each night), and breaks it down for us, phrase by phrase. The prayer goes like this: “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; all for your love’s sake. Amen.”
There is so much good stuff in this book, I could write a book-length review of it. Fortunately, I don't have that much time.
The book is, to a great degree, about vulnerability. Because we are more vulnerable at night. Night takes a toll on all of us; if we are sick, we feel worse at night. And the effect of darkness on us . . . can be, at best, depressing, and, at worst, debilitating. Ironically, while I was reading this book, the entire state of Texas wound up in a winter storm warning. We, along with millions of others, were without electricity for almost 35 hours. It was dark by 6:00 PM on the night that fell in the middle of that powerless time. I felt the weight of darkness that night.
The Compline prayer takes us through chaos and pain, and helps us find God in the midst of it. We find a reality that is "larger and more enduring than" whatever we feel in the moment. And I can certainly empathize with Tish when she says that every prayer she has ever prayed is a variant of the prayer prayed by the father of the child in Mark 9:24: "I believe; help my unbelief!" I have prayed that prayer, myself, so many times.
Growing up Southern Baptist, I never was exposed to pre-written prayers. That is regretful. Because when we don't know what to pray, the Church, throughout history has given us wonderful prayers to pray. It's like the Church says to us: "Here are some words. Pray them. They are strong enough to hold you. These will help your unbelief."
Early on, Tish says, "Faith, I've come to believe, is more craft than feeling. and prayer is our chief practice in the craft." This is sort of a touch stone for the whole book, as well as her statement that God cannot be trusted to keep bad things from happening to us. This statement would, of course, make some people furious. But not me. I get it. God cannot be trusted to keep bad things from happening to use because God never promised to keep bad things from happening to us. He allows us to remain vulnerable.
"God did not keep bad things from happening to God himself."
This is also a book about "theodicy," which is defined as "the vindication of divine goodness and providence in view of the existence of evil." Tish describes it as "an existential knife-fight between the reality of our own quaking vulnerability and our hope for a God who can be trusted." Of theodicy, Flannery O'Conner said "It is not 'a problem to be solved, but a mystery to be endured.'"
This book is relevant to our time. It takes a prayer that has existed for, perhaps, centuries, and pulls into 2021, applying to all of the pain and chaos that takes place in our modern world. More irony . . . when Ms. Warren began writing this book she had no idea that we would be in a global pandemic for over twelve months.
This book offers hope. "The hope God offers us is this: he will keep close to us, even in darkness, in doubt, in fear and vulnerability. He does not promise to keep bad things from happening. He does not promise that night will not come, or that it will not be terrifying, or that we will immediately be tugged to shore.
"He promises that we will not be left alone. He will keep watch with us in the night."
This book deals with grief, something that even the Church doesn't do well with, at times. As a people, at least in the Western world, we try to avoid grief. We try to control it. But, she says, " We control it as much as we control the weather."
"As a church, we must learn to slow down and let emptiness remain unfilled. We must make time for grief."
Tish spends a lot of time in the Psalms, here. And that's good, because almost every emotion known to man can be found in the Psalms. It happens to be my personal favorite book of the Bible, because it is full of prayers to which I can turn when I cannot come up with words of my own. I pray something from Psalms every day. And guess what! When David and the other psalmists dared to utter harsh words to God, He did not smite them! "Through the Psalms, he dares us to speak to him bluntly."
One of my favorite quotes from the book came from a refrigerator magnet. "Everything will be okay in the end. If it's not okay, it's not the end."
Through this book, and the Compline prayer, Tish Harrison Warren takes us through grief, work, anxiety; through sleeping, sickness, weariness, and dying; through suffering and affliction, and then, finally, through joy. "And all for Your love's sake."
I absolutely love this book. I will, most definitely read it again, and probably soon. Close to the end, the author says this, and I believe it sums it up nicely: "In the end, darkness is not explained; it is defeated. Night is not justified or solved; it is endured until light overcomes it and it is no more."
Rating: really liked it
“In the end, darkness is not explained; it is defeated. Night is not justified or solved; it is endured until light overcomes it and it is no more.”
I’m honestly sad I’m done reading this book.
“Prayer in the Night” tackles the problem of pain and suffering (theodicy) and how we can trust God in the midst of brokenness by going through the prayer of Compline line by line.
I’ve seen the conversation around theodicy handled in several unhelpful ways, but Tish Harrison Warren is refreshingly honest about her own experience with pain, loss, and how praying Compline was her life line, while always storytelling on the foundation of the truth about God in the Bible. She doesn’t slap a bandaid on suffering. She looks it in the eye, calls it what it is, then poetically shows God’s presence and redemption in every moment.
“Prayer in the Night” impacted how I pray, how I approach prayer, and my gratitude for the prayers of others (Psalms, Book of Common Prayer, Every Moment Holy). This book has also equipped me with kind, Scriptural language for how to process and talk about pain.
I’m grateful for this book and I cannot recommend it enough.
Rating: really liked it
A really beautiful book. Not only does Warren draw you into a prayerful posture towards suffering and God, but she introduces you to so many other saints along the way. I really appreciate this particular approach to theodicy, one that is rich in poetic imagination, draws deeply from the wells of the Great Tradition, and is deeply personal for the author.
Rating: really liked it
Absolutely beautiful book. Basically her commentary of the compline prayer from the book of common prayer….but whether you use liturgical prayers or not…this book makes you fall in love with prayer as a mysterious spiritual discipline.
Rating: really liked it
Summary: Both an introduction to Compline and a phrase by phrase reflection using one of the loveliest of Compline prayers.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
Over the last year of the pandemic, I’ve posted on Facebook prayers, morning and evening, (“Collects”) from The Book of Common Prayer. The prayer above, from of the office of Compline, is one of my favorites, and often I think of particular people as I pray each phrase. During the pandemic this has included the working and weary medical personnel, the people keeping vigil for those in ICUs, the sick and sometimes the dying, those afflicted with long-COVID, and others who struggle with chronic pain and illness. Amid this all I think of the joyous including new parents, graduates, and all of us who have received vaccines. I think of angels watching over and guarding us in the vulnerable moments of our nightly rest. I rest in the care of the Lord who watches for love’s sake.
Thus it was with great delight that I discovered on opening Prayer in the Night that it is organized around this loved prayer. Tish Harrison Warren takes us through her own journey of praying compline, most notably one night with her husband in an emergency room as she hemorrhaged severely during a miscarriage. She introduces us to Compline, the last of the prayers of the hours or offices, to be prayed at night before retiring. She writes of how Compline helped her at a time of loss of a baby and of her father:
“Compline speaks to God in the dark. And that’s what I had to learn to do–to pray in the darkness of anxiety and vulnerability, in doubt and disillusionment. It was Compline that gave words to my anxiety and grief and allowed me to reencounter the doctrines of the church not as tidy little antidotes for pain, but as a light in darkness, as good news.”TISH HARRISON WARREN, P. 19.
In succeeding chapters, Warren offers reflections on each phrase of this prayer that come out of her lived experience with praying it. She begins by discussing the God to whom we pray in the dark, and how the prayers operate as cairns, rock structures, that help us keep on the path when we can only feel our way along in fog or the dark. She then turns to the way of the vulnerable–those who weep or watch or work, taking the phrases in reverse order. She concludes:
“Taken together, working and watching and weeping are a way to endure the mystery of theodicy. They are a faithful response to our shared human tragedy–but only when we hold all three together, giving space and energy to each, both as individuals and as the church.”TISH HARRISON WARREN, P. 75.
From this she turns to what she calls “a taxonomy of vulnerability.” She describes her renewed understanding of the care of the angels in our sleep as she prayed for her first child each night. Her reflection on sickness includes insights into the wonders of our bodies that we often take for granted until illness. In weariness we are offered rest, one to learn from, and one who intercedes for us. Prayer for the dying reminds us of our own death and how we are taught to live in light of it and our resurrection hope. Suffering and affliction take us into new places of dependence upon God in our weakness, and call the church into depths we are reluctant to go. Then there is the risk of disappointment in joy and our need to be shielded here as well.
Finally, Warren concludes by exploring how God invites us into a deeper encounter with his love. In the night. When we doubt. In our illness and vulnerability. In suffering and affliction. The love of God, revealed in Christ, is the last word of this prayer.
The writing about goodness, truth, and beauty one finds in Warren’s prose is humbling. All I can say is what is found in this book is so much better and richer than my summary. Warren helps me pray a prayer I’ve loved with deeper meaning and consciousness of my vulnerability and the depths of God’s care. She offers good direction for all of us facing “night” in our lives.
____________________________
Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a complimentary review copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.
Rating: really liked it
This book is structured around a compline prayer from 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."
Tish Harrison Warren writes that during a difficult season in her life, "it was the prayers and practices of the church [including compline] that allowed me to hold to --or rather to be held by--God when little else seemed sturdy even when I found no satisfying answers." Similarly, Warren's words of God, about God, and to God are words that have grounded me deeply in truth because she does not write finding hope in pat answers or saccharine sentiments that give out when the night darkens. This book lives in the in-between spaces of this broken world and the life everlasting because that is where we are. And Warren, in her priestly wisdom, seems to know that what the church needs is someone willing to address the questions or crisis of faith that occur in the midst of suffering, and to do so honestly, vulnerably, without reservation. Prayer in the Night confronts death and darkness, sickness and pain, and somehow does so without reducing or cheapening the light.
Rating: really liked it
a life changing take on grief and suffering. this book has shaped my viewpoint of what it means to be vulnerable with Christ in the darkest moments of life, to pray through seasons of darkness and fear and deep sadness, to recognize that there is no time table to healing or when a night may end, but that we can trust that healing is always offered and that morning will in deed come eventually because of the reality of the resurrection of Jesus.
Rating: really liked it
I don’t come from a church background of written prayers, but the more I am exposed to them, the more I love them.
“Patterns of prayer draw us out of ourselves, out of our own timebound moment, into the long story of Christ’s work in and through his people over time,” Warren writes.
In this book, she works line by line through the words of an evening 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.”
Night exposes our vulnerability and with it, often, our deepest struggles. Pain becomes endless. Grief feels unbearable. Fear reaches a crescendo.
“When we’re drowning we need a lifeline, and our lifeline in grief cannot be mere optimism that maybe our circumstances will improve because we know that may not be true. We need practices that don’t simply palliate our fears or pain, but that teach us to walk with God in the crucible of our own fragility.”
Prayer is one of those practices. Each phrase from this one has its own chapter. I loved them all, from the very first about the presence of God implied in the words “keep watch.”
“He does not promise to keep bad things from happening. He does not promise that night will not come, or that it will not be terrifying, or that we will immediately be tugged to shore. He promises that we will not be left alone. He will keep watch with us in the night.”
I loved her perspective on weeping – the commonality of grief, which she calls “the white noise of all human experience.”
She looks to the Psalms to learn how to respond to that noise.
“They never say, ‘Chin up,’ or ‘It’s not so bad.’ Nor do they tell us why we suffer. Instead they fix our vision on God’s love for us, and teach us to locate our own pain and longing in God’s eternal drama. They form us into a people who can hold the depths of our sorrow with utter honesty even as we hold to the promises of God.”
Watching, she says, is being on the lookout for grace. Work, “done well, adds truth, beauty, and goodness to the world. It pushes back the darkness.”
Even sleep is so much more than I tend to think: “God designed the universe – and our bodies themselves—so that each day we must face the fact that we are not the stars on center stage. … Each night the revolution of planets, the activity of angels and the work of God in the world goes on just fine without us. For the Christian, sleep is an embodied way to confess our trust that the work of God does not depend on us.”
My family has begun to incorporate this Compline prayer into our evening routine. I love working through the phrases and thinking about Christians through the centuries who have grappled with the same mysteries we do.
“It’s about how to continue to walk the way of faith without denying the darkness. It’s about the terrible yet common suffering we each shoulder, and what trusting God might mean in the midst of it.”
Rating: really liked it
This book may have saved my faith.
