Still dark with the shadows of trees just beginning to emerge, it promises to be a really beautiful day. Earlier in the predawn morning, just before 5 or so, you could see Venus and Mercury in the East. There’s not a sound, not even cicadas, katydids or crickets, now asleep and quiet.
What’s always surprising about sunrise, even before you see the sun, is that all of a sudden, it’s light and you can see everything around you. Then a cacophony of sounds emerge, birds looking for their morning meal, the sound of a dog barking off in the distance. Off in the distance a hawk is circling, waiting for that mouse, curious enough to do more than poke its head out of its little nest.
Sometimes you wonder: was the beginning like this? When the breath of God settled onto the earth? What is it out there we do not see because our vision has become so limited by modern life? What is it inside us that we do not hear as a world needing our care cries out to us?
Prayer for the Day
With your hand you brought us out of the dust, Eternal Creator
And with your breath you gave us life.
With your heart you formed us into your likeness, Loving Spirit,
And with your soul you made us sentient beings.
May we respond to the power of your love
To the world around us and all who inhabit it,
In the name of the One who embodies your Spirit,
Even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.
Thoughts for the Day
The creation is not in any sense independent of the Creator, the result of a primal creative act long over and done with, but is the continuous, constant participation of all creatures in the being of God.
Wendell Berry, from Christianity and the Survival of Creation
Remember the wind. Remember her voice. She knows the origin of this universe.
Joy Harjo, Muscogee (Creek) Nation poet, "Remember"
The heavens are telling the glory of God; and the firmament proclaims God’s handiwork,
Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge.
There is no speech, nor are there words; their voice is not heard,
Yet their voice goes out through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world.
Psalm 19: 1-4