Saturday, November 12, 2017

Psalm 90:14

Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love,
   so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

November dawn

Cold November dawns deep blue and purple on Feather Sound. What yesterday glistened gold, the rapture of autumn reflecting on the water’s face, has become a harbinger of what is soon to come. One day, everything changes. The season of falling loses its luster as winter descends.

But even here is hope as clouds part, and a thin shaft of light pierces the low purple shrouding this stop on my morning journey. Then, another ray, narrower still, appears through a break in the gloom to light the glassy surface by reeds and cattails, coated with frost, rustling stiff in the breeze.

I stop to watch the play of water and light, expecting or at least hoping the light will excite a moment of joy and knowing ... and salve wounds the decades don’t heal.

The light is enough, just enough, to flicker warmth within and let me know that Love brought this into being and Love wants me even when I feel utterly lost and alone, wondering where I am going and what will be, having no clue, at least none I want to accept.

The two narrow streams of light flow from the heavens and transform the sound. The horizon disappears. My eyes cannot find where water ends and sky begins.

The pond, dark and smooth as glass, seamlessly reflects the purple and mottled blues of lumpy cumulus, pierced by November dawn. The water now an artist’s canvas catches every shade and hue, capturing each contour of cloud awakening an old hope.

Earth and sky are one. So maybe I, too, can know oneness with the One who makes such mornings and paints the day with the colors of love and hope. Maybe then my heart and life will be as seamlessly one as water and sky.

Maybe here the heart of Jesus reaches to heal what nothing else can. Maybe he has been waiting for me here all along, waiting to share November dawn. Maybe it is a voice more holy than my own that whispers, “Just stand here.”

Pr. David L. Miller