# Small Day 2 > Come to Stillness: Take a few minutes to allow your mind and heart to be still before God. ### Opening Prayer: *Lord, give me the ability to persist through tedium, to survive without the oxygen of recognition, praise, and stroking, and to do some good things every day which are seen only by You. (Sacred Space: the Prayer Book 2010 by Jesuit Communication Centre)* #### Psalm for the Week: Psalm 131 #### John the Baptist Prepares the Way #### 1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.[a] *2 As it is written in Isaiah the prophet,[b]“Behold, I send my messenger before your face,who will prepare your way,3 the voice of one crying in the wilderness: ‘Prepare[c] the way of the Lord, make his paths straight,’”* *4 John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And all the country of Judea and all Jerusalem were going out to him and were being baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel's hair and wore a leather belt around his waist and ate locusts and wild honey. 7 And he preached, saying, “After me comes he who is mightier than I, the strap of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8 I have baptized you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”* #### Scripture for the Day: John 3:22-30 #### John the Baptist Exalts Christ *22 After this Jesus and his disciples went into the Judean countryside, and he remained there with them and was baptizing. 23 John also was baptizing at Aenon near Salim, because water was plentiful there, and people were coming and being baptized 24 (for John had not yet been put in prison).* *25 Now a discussion arose between some of John's disciples and a Jew over purification. 26 And they came to John and said to him, “Rabbi, he who was with you across the Jordan, to whom you bore witness—look, he is baptizing, and all are going to him.” 27 John answered, “A person cannot receive even one thing unless it is given him from heaven. 28 You yourselves bear me witness, that I said, ‘I am not the Christ, but I have been sent before him.’ 29 The one who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom's voice. Therefore this joy of mine is now complete. 30 He must increase, but I must decrease.”[a]* #### Reading for Reflection: *Those who believe in God can never in a way be sure of him again. Once they have seen him in a stable, they can never be sure where he will appear or to what lengths he will go or to what ludicrous depths of self-humiliation he will descend in his wild pursuit of man. If holiness and the awful power and majesty of God were present in this least auspicious of all events, this birth of peasant’s child, then there is no place or time so lowly and earthbound but that holiness can be present there too. And this means that we are never safe, that there is no place where we can hide from God, no place where we are safe from his power to break in two and recreate the human heart because it is just where he seems most helpless that he is most strong, and just where we least expect him he comes most fully. (The Hungering Dark by Frederick Buechner)* #### Reflection and Listening: silent and written #### Prayer: for the church, for others, for myself #### Song for the Week: Winter Snow *Could've come like a mighty storm* *With all the strength of a hurricane* *You could've come like a forest fire* *With the power of heaven in Your flame* *But You came like a winter snow* *Quiet and soft and slow* *Falling from the sky in the night* *To the earth below* *You could've swept in like a tidal wave* *Or an ocean to ravish our hearts* *You could have come through like a roaring flood* *To wipe away the things we've scarred* *But You came like a winter snow* *You were quiet You were soft and slow* *Falling from the sky in the night* *To the earth below* *Oh, no, Your voice wasn't in a bush burning* *No, Your voice wasn't in a rushing wind* *It was still* *It was small* *It was hidden* *You came like a winter snow* *Quiet and soft and slow* *Falling from the sky in the night* *To the earth below* *Falling* *To the earth below* *You came falling From the sky in the night* ### Closing Prayer: *Lord, High and Holy, Meek and Lowly,* *Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision, where I live* *in the depths but see thee in the heights; hemmed in* *by mountains of sin I behold thy glory.* *Let me learn by paradox* *that the way down is the way up,* *that to be low is to be high,* *that the broken heart is the healed heart,* *that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit* *that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,* *that to have nothing is to possess all,* *that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,* *that to give is to receive,* *that the valley is the place of vision.* *Lord, in the daytime stars can be seen from the deepest* *wells. And the deeper the wells the brighter thy stars* *shine;* *Let me find thy light in my darkness,* *thy life in my death,* *thy joy in my sorrow,* *thy grace in my sin,* *thy riches in my poverty,* *thy glory in my valley.* *(The Valley of Vision: A Collection of Puritan Prayers and Devotions ed. by Arthur Bennett)*