My name is Drake…  Symon Drake.  I’m a descendant of Sir Francis Drake.  Actually a descendant of one of his brothers, as he never had children.  I’ve tracked my direct ancestry back to the 1700s so there is a bit of a gap to get back to Francis – but his name has been in our family for hundreds of years, and one day hopefully the blanks will be filled in.

Anyway – I didn’t even know Sir Francis was a man of faith until today, when I heard a prayer of his.

A brief history lesson:

Francis Drake was an adventurer and essentially a legal pirate (hero of the English, arch-villain of the Spaniards).  He wrote this prayer as he departed Portsmouth to raid Spanish gold on the west coast of South America.  He eventually returned to England (the long way – via circumnavigation) with loot worth over a half million pounds sterling, and received his Knighthood for it.

Sir Francis Drake’s Prayer (1577)

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.Disturb us, Lord, when
with the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with 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 wilder seas
Where storms will show Your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

Pretty awesome great great great+ uncle if you ask me

“First they came …” is a popular poem attributed to Pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) about the inactivity of German intellectuals following the Nazi rise to power and the purging of their chosen targets, group after group.

First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak out for me.