Working in the Night

If I say, "Surely the darkness shall cover me,
     and the light around me become night,"
Even the darkness is not dark to You;
     The night is as bright as the day,
           for darkness is as light to You.  (Psalm 139:11-12)

Some years ago, we installed a closed-circuit camera to the barn.  It runs to the unused TV antenna input to the TV, and we can put on the "Goat Channel" to keep tabs on what is happening in the stalls.  This is immensely convenient, for no longer do we have to put on boots and jacket at 3:00 a.m. to go check a close-up doe, only to come back to bed saying, "Nothing happening out there."  And other times, as occured a couple weeks ago, I was working inside, talking on the phone with a parishioner, and keeping a left eye on a doe.  Suddenly she lay down hard and started pushing, phone in hand I ran out to find she'd shot out a gorgeous kid.  After explaining what was happenning and hanging up, I was right there when kid #2 started coming, with an atypical presentation, which I promptly pulled.  We have saved several kids by being alerted to trouble via the ubiquitous TV view of the barn.

At night, when the 110 channels of Dish TV have nothing worth watching (!), the Goat Channel can be positively mesmerizing.  You might think that it would be a placid scene of does chewing their cud, with their kids tucked up next to them, sleeping the night away,  Quite the contrary!  All night long, goats are coming indoors and going outdoors, kids are running and playing, and does chase each other out of prime bedding spots under the heat lamps. If the night is calm and the moon is bright, whole families will wander outside to poke around the feeder for a three a.m. snack.  Kids play "king of the mountain," jumping up on their mom's back, daring their siblings to push them off.  Rarely can you watch more than a few minutes without animals moving around.  It's hard to snooze on the couch with the Goat Cam going, for something interesting is always going on.  Night is not a time of still and quiet.  This picture is from 1:30 a.m., and taken not long after the picture above.

Those of us who live "regular" "day" jobs are often unaware of the vast numbers of people whose primary work comes in the night.  Someone once told me that ministry was a "Second Shift" job, for you had to be able to be available at the hours other people were off work.  In that community, assembly lines ran 24/7, so someone was always getting up, working, socializing, or hitting the sack, quite irrespective of the place the sun or moon might be in the sky.  It was always someone's Friday night, and somebody else's Monday morning.  Yet those nocturnal people are usually invisible to the church, which continues to focus on Sunday mornings and weekday evenings for the lion's share of worship, education, fellowship, and decision making.

My help comes from the Lord,
       who made heaven and earth.
 God will not let your foot be moved;
      The Refuge who keeps you will not slumber.
The Savior who keeps Israel
      will neither slumber nor sleep.
 The Lord is your keeper;
      the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
 The sun shall not strike you by day,
      nor the moon by night.  (Psalm 121:2-6)

Many years ago, for a Lenten discipline, I attended the Evening Prayer service at my local Episcopal church.  A small group of elderly ladies, young people from the neighborhood, and Father Ostertag met each day at 5:00 for the brief liturgy.  Coming from an evangelical background, my idea of high liturgy was lighting candles to hymns on Christmas eve, so entering into this service was a very different experience.  I found that the prayers, though predictable, certainly did not amount to the "vain repetition" and "empty ritual" I had been warned about.  Rather, they percolated deep into my subconscious over those weeks, and I have been able to call on them in crises when my own spontaneous praying was overwhelmed.  Among the prayers is a collect that spoke to the busyness, activity, turmoil and tragedy that goes unseen each night:

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

(Book of Common Prayer, Evening Prayer II, p. 124.)

My buzzing barn of kids sleeping and leaping reminds me to pray for all those who are awake deep in the night.  May you not have any 3:00 a.m. kiddings this season!  And when you do, know you do not toil alone.