The Day Before Ascension Day

        (You can skip all of this and just scroll down to the end where the verse is if you'd like to or are in a hurry...) 

         I read through the the entirely of Morning Prayer and nothing jumped out at me. Nada. I had two people  -Frances Perkins (1880—1965)  

Public Servant and Prophetic Witness (Holy Women, Holy Men), 

 a faithful Episcopalian 

who was the first woman to serve a US President as a member of the cabinet. As Sectary of  Labor, she had a major part in shaping the New Deal legislation signed by Franklin D Roosevelt. Also, thanks to Google, I had Inge Lehmann (1888- 1993) the Danish seismologist and geophysicist who discovered the Earth's inner core.

     But no meditation verse. 

     It occurred to me that tomorrow is the Ascension, which means that these last 3 days have been Rogation days. But I had had no intention of going into the weeds and telling you about Rogation Days, which seemed both esoteric and irrelevant. (I had not even said attention to them myself this year!) But, at a total standstill, I looked at my Prayer Book Office Book and there it was!  But, before I share the verse, I now need to tell you about Rogation Days. I will let Don Palmer from St Paul's Episcopal Chapel in Alabama to do that: Rogation Days are an ancient custom which has been being observed since the 5th century.  Rogation—to ask, as in “interrogate”—we ask God’s blessing of the harvest, of the earth and sea.  We remind ourselves that we are the stewards of Creation, neither the authors nor the owners of it.  Originally an agricultural observance, it has been broadened and made more inclusive—the crops, the catch of the sea, the fruits of our labors in all their aspects.

       And suddenly Rogation Days seemed both timely And relevant! - the earth and very our immediate need to understand and conserve it (at this point, to preserve it as habitable!) and human labor, fairness and equity, summed up in these two women and in the ancient tradition of the church. Way to go, God! Sometimes He needs to just back me into it.

         (Sorry, I usually just give you the verse and let it go at that. But today the back story was too good not to share! So here, at long last, we go:) 

                    

                An antiphon on Psalm 65 

                      for this Rogation Day 

The Lord God took the 

man and the woman 

 and put them in the Garden 

  to till it and care for it, hallelujah.