Sunrise Earth

We had plans to work outside today getting ready for the Hester family reunion next week. I turned on the television to catch the weather (like a good farmer does every morning) to see what was coming our way. Bad news and more bad news- bombings, death, terrorists, news about the killers of a family in Florida, and another Michael Jackson story- greeted me. After the weather, I began channel surfing and made a wonderful discovery.
One channel was running a show called Sunrise Earth. This morning they were in Cambodia at a Buddhist temple. As the sun slowly rose to the sounds of chanting monks, birds called to each other. The dark, strange looking shapes, the larger building, the trees and sky, came alive as a beautiful sunrise unfolded on the screen.
Inside the temple, three monks sat chanting in their orange robes, kneeling on a grass mat covered floor. The repetitive chant flowed like soothing water over my frazzled self. To my delighted wonderment, the camera revealed a Disneyland light display behind the Buddha. Running lights and flickering lights and colored lights along with the traditional candles illuminated the face of an ebony Buddha with an overbite.
I sat entranced as a rainbow over the temple came into view. A pigeon sitting on top of the temple roof stretched its legs and groomed his feathers. The clouds shifted shapes and colors while ever so slowly the darkness receded. The monks stood and walked out of the temple single file towards their day half a world away. Children began to make their way towards school in their uniforms as bicycle riding adults went about the business of the morning. And the only soundtrack is the quiet busyness... no music, no auto traffic, no laugh track. What a lovely way to begin my busy day visiting a village in Cambodia at the break of day.
One of the reasons I love to write in the morning is it gives me a quiet parentheses in my day, a time to be still, to think, to feel the presence of God before my day begins. Anne Morrow Lindberg, one of my favorite writers, captured my feelings about writing in these words. “I must write it all out at any cost. Writing is thinking. It is more than living for it is being conscious of living.” It is my morning prayer.
The monks know that morning prayers help your day begin with the proper framework, the acknowledgment of the Higher Power that is beside us in all our lives, all around the world, in our coming and going. Morning prayers put our place in the world into perspective. Terrorists and murders and suffering and wars have been with humankind as long as we have been alive. The Bible records faithfully the many ways we take our lives in vain but we have choices we can make, choices that can lead to peace and hope. Choosing to pray in the morning, whether it is chanting or writing, meditating or singing, can shape shift your day so that you walk “in the fullness of the Lord”. It will be a busy day but it has gotten off to a good start. Thanks be to God.