Day 24: Bedtime liturgy

Zander recently gave up his nap and his sleep was out of control. He was tired starting around noon but couldn't sleep and by 5 he was past tired and I couldn't settle him down until close to 9. The spiral worsened and I decided we needed a drastic overhaul of our night routine.

I was surprised by his reaction to my firmness. I had expected problems. I found an over tired preschooler who embraced the structure as respite for his tired little body. 

But he is rigid about the routine. Jammies, teeth, floss, 3 minutes in the rocking chair with a cup of water and 3 board books in bed, in the same order. Some nights he's so tired that he starts falling asleep in the rocking chair but he wakes himself and powers through.  

He doesn't even look at the books when I read them. Often he turns on his side, eyes closed and listens. Sometimes he recites them but lately, he just wants me to read them. Tonight, I didn't even open the books, I just recited the words. 

The last book is his bedtime prayer:

Bless the moon, bless the stars

Bless my nightlight, bless my cars 

Bless my trucks, bless my chairs

Bless my table, bless my bears

Bless my bunny, bless my mouse

Bless the family in its house

Bless my pillow, bless my bed

And bless me too from toes to head

Bless the water, earth and air 

And bless the children everywhere. 

As I turned out the light and curled up in the beanbag next to his bed to write this post, I began to ponder liturgy as a kind of bedtime routine.  

I had this image in my mind of church as an intellectual and emotional act of worship. Connecting with the words, hearing them, meditating on them and allowing them to change me. And worship is that... but sometimes, it's like Zanders bedtime routine.  

It's words to a cadence that animates a routine which catalyzes a way of being. 

The lord be with you

And also with you

Life up your hands

We lift them up to the lord 

There are things to ponder in this exchange. But even writing it, I feel the feeling of gathering around a table. Waiting for Communion.  

.... let us pray to the Lord

Lord, hear our prayer or Lord have mercy

I feel the ever expanding concern of the church reaching out in prayer for the world. 

Go in faith and serve the lord

Thanks be to God

I am ready to be done with church. 

I think of myself like Zander.  With a routine in place to repeat week after week.  Reminding me of the main parts of Christian faith. I don't need the bulletin,  the words are the same our close enough to the same that I know what to say.  

It never occurred to me,  that the motions themselves without thought or even heart into it could be meaningful. Some days,  he loves his books.  Or he is into getting his jammies on by himself or connecting with me while we snuggle in the rocking chair.  Some days he doesn't want to go to bed and he goes through the process in protest and yet,  by the end,  without participating at all,  finds himself worked on by the routine and is ready to relinquish himself to bed and drifts off in minutes.  Some days he's so tired,  I have to do the routine to him and plop him in bed.  

I think about liturgical church this way. I, as the toddler, am acted on by the routine whether or not I'm into it.  I come out different than I came in,  at least a little.   

Faith routines - spiritual practices - are a way of allowing God to parent us. Even when we come to them sad,  tired,  angry or apathetic.  God carries us through and feeds us even when we have a fit and throw it on the floor because we wanted ice cream instead.  

Before I even wrote three words of this post,  Zander was asleep.  Blessed are the routines that help little ones regulate their bodies and blessed are the routines that bring us back to God on a regular rhythm.