Monday, June 15, 2009

Disturb us, Lord...

Sir Frances Drake, the first Englishman to navigate the globe spoke these words in prayer:

Disturb us, Lord, when

We are too well pleased with ourselves

When our dreams have come true

Because we dreamed too little,

When we arrived safely

Because we sailed too close to shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when

With the abundance of things we possess

We have lost our thirst for the waters of life;

We have ceased to dream of eternity

And in our efforts to build a new earth,

We have allowed our vision

Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,

To venture on wider seas

Where storms will show your mastery;

Where losing sight of land

We shall find stars.

We ask you to push back

The horizons of our hopes;

And to push us in the future

In strength, courage, hope and love.

Sir Francis Drake, December 1577

6 comments:

Leisha said...

Oh, I do indeed love this. Thanks.

thatoneguy said...

I never knew he was a poet. A poet-pirate. I like it.

karyn said...

if ever a quote deserved to be written on a doorframe, this one does.

i love that we can always count on Shannon to post something beautiful.

Shannon said...

who knew that poet pirates could pray so beautifully? :)

i'm glad i can count on you three to comment on the things i post!

Annibelle said...

I think I need to tattoo this to my arm and read it every day.

[Pause] Ok, I'm not going to LITERALLY tattoo it... More like read/pray it often.

Yes. That's exactly what I meant. ;)

thatoneguy said...

That'd be a lot of ink (of course you'd have to use some kind of calligraphic cursive); it could easily swallow an entire arm. Yeah, a doorframe's probably more practical...