God be at mine end
This month Dr Patricia Brennan AM died of cancer at 66. She was best known for her advocacy of women’s ordination in the Anglican church, but she was also a practising forensic physician who specialised in the treatment of victims of sexual abuse, and who, with her husband, had been a missionary in Nigeria. Her death has gone relatively unnoticed (though you can listen to an interview here, and read an obituary here); I hope her tomb will not be entirely unvisited. Among the hymns she chose for her funeral was this brief but ample prayer:
God be in my head, and in my understanding.
God be in mine eyes, and in my looking.
God be in my mouth and in my speaking.
God be in my heart, and in my thinking.
God be at mine end, and at my departing.