Each day, we wake up, rubbing our eyes to a new day.
And what greets us as we open those eyes?
Light!
A new dawn greets us each day, but it is easy to overlook. Tempting to treat it as something mundane, something to be expected.
What are the first actions you take to greet the new day?
Hit snooze button? Grab for phone to see what you missed in the last hours? Grumble about having to work?
I hope that we can all create space for meaning around each new day, and I have a few inspirations for us as we work to understand what each new dawn might mean for us.
First, being a poet and an optimist, I see the new dawn as a new chance to discover ourselves, to receive gifts in life. I see life itself as a beautiful struggle, one that includes pain and hurt and trauma. All of us struggle to overcome our addictions (money, power, substances, etc.) and head to bed with hope and faith that we can find a new path. And each morning provides us with a chance to begin paving a new road, creating a new direction for our life.
Second, in many eastern traditions, the night is seen as a “small death”, with each new day giving us life again. We are reborn each new day. Let that soak in…acknowledging that when we close our eyes at night we surrender our life into Hands Higher, no longer in control of whether we will see light again. It puts perspective on the act of waking up each morning, huh?
Third, a reminder of the importance in many traditions to waking up early to greet the morning sun as it rises. In Muslim tradition, the first prayer of the day (Salat al-Fajr) is to be completed before the sun rises. In Navajo tradition, one rises and runs to the east to greet the morning sun and the new day as a spiritual and physical exercise.
What do your traditions teach about the holiness of the morning?
What do you want your tradition to be each time a new dawn greets you?
Brothers and sisters, let us greet the new day with a few minutes that sets the course of that day and of our life in a way that is intentional, reflective of our spiritual values. Imagine those first minutes as sacred, holy, and precious. Treat them with utmost care and love.
May each new dawn bring light to each of our worlds.
Allow us to be awake and aware of the gift the new dawn offers us.
~Anthony Fleg, Guest Poet and Blogger
