Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord; and by thy great mercy defend us from all perils and dangers of this night; for the love of thy only Son, our Saviour, Jesus Christ.
This is the Third Collect, for Aid against all Perils, from the order for Evening Prayer in The Book of Common Prayer (1662). A modern form of this is used in some prayer books for compline or night prayer. It is one of my favourite prayers, in its quiet dignity acknowledging the darkness that is an inescapable part of human existence, and pleading that the burden of darkness may be lessened.
I’m quite capable of hosting a blog running WordPress or some other software on my own server, but I have decided that my personal time is better spent in study and writing than in system administration. It’s the same feeling that led me to shelve my old laptop running Ubuntu and get a shiny new Mac. I still have a lot of control over my system, but to a greater extent, everything just works straight out of the box.
I have another blog hosted on Livejournal, with a more miscellaneous range of content.
