The best part about being the first one up in the house is getting to listen to the quiet before the world wakes. It isn’t often in a house of five people, six this week with grandma in town, that you get moments of quiet, and when you do it is because one kid or another is up to something they shouldn’t be.
There is something special about listening to the day unfold. There was a time when I would start everyday with a walk along the beach to watch the sunrise. This time didn’t last too long, because at certain parts of the year the sunrise is extremely early.
I have beaten the sunrise this morning. The world is dark outside my window and even the birds remain silent. That could be due to the rain storm last night, but you would think there would be a few birds out to catch the worms chased from the soil by the driving rain.
The morning will come. It always does. Even after the darkest night there is a morning. In my mind I picture the scene from the 1990’s remake of The House on Haunted Hill. All this horror has just occurred and these two people are sitting outside this house of horrors watching the sun rise. The horror isn’t really behind them. I am sure there will be questions to answers and police reports to fill out, but in that moment the sun is rising and the horror is in the past.
Experiencing the awakening of the world is the ultimate way to live in the present. It is a singular moment during the day, and a moment that happens every day. No matter what we do or who we are the morning will be there for us. A quiet respite from the work of the day ahead and behind.
It does not depend on us. We cannot make the morning come, nor can we stop the sun’s assent. It is a remind that we are living in a world not of our creation. A reminder that there are forces far more powerful than us that have been here from millennia before us and will be here for millennia after us. It is a brief moment in a brief moment we call life.
David Huzzard Writes 