December Daily: favorite thing

marginaliana asked, "what is your favorite physical non-living thing? Not a person or a pet, but it could be something you own or a piece of art, etc."

This was surprisingly difficult to answer, and in the end, I can't really say this is my favorite thing -- it's just my newest favorite thing.



When I was at Mom's at Thanksgiving, she gave me the little prayer book that my father got from the priest of his Episcopal church when he joined the Navy in 1951. It's a little bigger than an index card.



My father never went to war (Mom told me he used to say he served on "the Good Ship Never-Sail"), so I don't know how it got so battered.

It has Bible excerpts (heavy on the psalms calling for help in times of trouble), and the lyrics to hymns, and bits of the Book of Common Prayer, including a full Communion service. I'd like to know how the publishers imagined that being used -- it's not as though some random sailor who wasn't ordained could just decide he wanted to offer Communion to his shipmates.

( Click for question list. Comment me to fill in one of the blanks. )