The Lections of the Morning Watch are the fellowship's own. We say this first and will say it again, because it matters. They were not found in a cave. They were written at kitchen tables, over many years, by members of the fellowship who had been reading the ancient texts so long that the voice of the tradition had become, in some measure, their own voice, and who wished to have short readings for the hours of the day in that voice. Hesper Lind gathered them. The rest of us argued over every word.
They are offered for use at the Morning and Evening Watch, one lection a day, read slowly and then held in silence. A student who finds them helpful should use them. A student who prefers the ancient texts should use those. The Lections make no claim but to be faithful.
For the Morning
The First Lection: Rising
Rise before the sun and you will meet the Light coming to meet you. Do not wait for the day to begin; begin it. Stand where the east is, though walls are between you and the hills. Say nothing of the world until you have said this: Blessed is the One who brings the morning, and blessed is the morning, and blessed am I who am given to see it.
The Second Lection: The Choice
Two spirits walk with every child of earth, and each morning you choose which one you will feed. Do not say, I am of the light, as if it were a thing you owned. Say, today I choose the light, and name the place you will choose it. A small place is enough. The Light does not despise small places; it was born in one.
The Third Lection: Washing
Wash the body in water and the mind in silence, and let the soul be washed in love. The water you can draw from any tap; it is the same water that fell on the mountain. The silence you must make yourself, by closing the door. The love you cannot make. You can only stand where it falls, and it falls everywhere.
The Fourth Lection: The Lamp
A lamp is not asked to be the sun. It is asked to be lit. Do not refuse your small light because it is small. The one who lights a lamp in the morning does not light it for the day, which has its own light; he lights it for the room where someone is still asleep.
The Fifth Lection: Bread
Bless the bread, bless the hand that made it, bless the earth that gave the grain, bless the sun that ripened it, bless the rain. Then eat, and know what you are eating: the whole creation, given. Eat enough and no more. Leave the table as you would leave a sanctuary.
The Sixth Lection: Going Out
Seek the brethren of the Light, and if you cannot find them, be one. Do not wait for a community to be worthy of you. Be the one at the table who blesses, the one at the gate who greets, the one in the market who gives the right weight. Communities are made of such ones. There is no other material.
The Seventh Lection: The Road
Do not ask how far the road is. Ask only whether your feet are on it. The one who asks the distance has already begun to count the cost, and the one who counts the cost has already begun to turn back. The road is as long as your life, and that is exactly long enough.
For the Noon
The Lection of the Noon Peace
Evening is for gratitude, morning for resolve, and noon for peace. At the height of the day, when the work presses hardest, stop. Stand still one moment in the sun. Ask: with what am I at war? Then lay down one weapon. Only one. Tomorrow at noon there will be another.
The Lection of the Storm
Peace is not the absence of the storm. It is the tree that keeps its roots. Do not pray for the wind to stop; the wind is the Law, and the Law is good. Pray to be rooted. The cedar does not argue with the weather. It drinks.
For the Evening
The First Evening Lection: Gratitude
Before you count what went wrong, count what was given: the breath you did not have to ask for, the water that came when you turned the handle, the one face that was kind. Give thanks aloud, though no one hears. The One who gives hears, and so do you, and you are the one who needed to.
The Second Evening Lection: The Examination
Ask not what you did wrong but where you went against the grain. Where did you push against the Law, and what did it cost? Where did you move with it, and what did it give? Keep no score. The Law does not need your guilt. It needs your attention, and tomorrow it will have it.
The Third Evening Lection: Letting Go
This day is finished and I return it. Say this, and mean it. The traveler does not carry the tent on his back all night; he lies down in it. Lie down. The morning is not yours to make. It is coming anyway, and it is coming for you.
The Fourth Evening Lection: The Ladder
You do not climb the ladder. You become the one who can stand on each rung. Do not strain upward. Stand where you are until you can stand there easily, and you will find that you are standing higher. The angels on the ladder were not climbing. They were going up and coming down, which is to say, they were at home on it.
The Fifth Evening Lection: Patience
Be patient with the slow growth of the soul. A cedar is not a weed. The weed is up in a week and gone in a season; the cedar is a year in showing a hand's breadth and a thousand years in the mountain. You were planted for the mountain. Do not envy the weed.
For Dry Seasons
The Lection of the Kept Hour
When you cannot pray, keep the hour anyway. The Light keeps its appointments; it rose this morning over those who slept, and it will rise tomorrow over you whether you feel it or not. Stand in the place. Say the words, or say nothing. The hour kept in dryness is worth ten kept in sweetness, for in the dryness you learn whom you are keeping it for.
The Lection of the Basket
The one who studies and does not practice carries water in a basket. He is wet and he is thirsty. Do not read one more page until you have done one thing you have already read. The texts are not the well. They are the map to the well, and the map does not drink.
The Lection of the Well
Truth is a well. The thirsty do not argue about the rope. If you have found a rope that reaches the water, use it, and do not despise the one who uses another. If your rope does not reach, lengthen it; do not curse the well. The well is deep because the water is good.
The Lection of the Desert
The desert does not give answers. It takes away the noise that hides them. If you have gone out and found nothing, you have found the first thing. Stay. The second thing comes to those who do not leave when the first thing disappoints them. The holy ones stayed for a lifetime, and they were not fools.
A Closing Word
These are not all the Lections; the fellowship has more, for the seasons of the year and the great days, and adds to them slowly. They are enough to begin. A student who uses them for a season and then finds his own words rising in the same voice has used them rightly. The tradition was never meant to be quoted. It was meant to be spoken.