In the Dawning

 One of the consistent things about me is that I am an early riser.

It has been that way most of my life, certainly all of my adult life.

In ways, I had no choice. My step-mother insisted that we would all be up, dressed, and ready for breakfast when she came home from her shift as the Ward Clerk at the local hospital. Before that, it was my Grandmother who would always rise in the wee hours. I carried it into my college years when I was working full-time and going to college full-time. It followed me to my professional life when I lived in a big city and had to be on the bus by 6am in order to get my sons dropped off and make the train to work by 8:30am.

Sleeping in was not part of my vocabulary, slow mornings did not exist.

Until after my last two children, my daughters, were well into college.

I could then, if I wanted, lounge a bit longer in the morning, not waiting for Saturday or Sunday to be the day I let my body rest.

But I just couldn't do it.

I guess it was ingrained in me and as a wife, mother, and minister, it became the quiet and still moments when I could hear my soul sing.

So my morning routine of refreshing my room and my self before making a light breakfast of fruit and coffee, is a part of my spiritual habit that I suspect will follow me to the end-of-my-life.  Even if I had nothing really planned for the day or anywhere to go, I would still get up to greet the new moments. 

Life can give us what we reach out for.

I remain curious and expectant.

My talks with God are about my intentions for the universe,  how I'm not finished yet, there are more books to read, more essays to write, more poems and prose to ponder, more pictures to take, more lakes to see. I am expectant.

December makes a turn for me, and I suspect for others, of reflecting on the year that has past and look with eager (or reticent) views toward what is coming.

After the year we have had as a country (and as a family), I am facing forward. They say the year of the Snake (2025) was about the shedding and completion and that the year of the Horse (2026) is about the gallop toward purpose, to go and get that thing that we have been destined for.

I am hopeful. 

We lived through the horrors of the administration, held up the mirror to people to see what their choices rendered, managed to survive and thrive, with determination. I, like many others like me, checked out of the news, no longer tried to fix what they broke, and turned my time, talent, and treasure towards those things (and people) what were building.

I right-sided an organization as the President and saw the two years of hard work as strategist result in chartering a new chapter. I completed residency and was commissioned (provisionally ordained = passing comps and oral interviews before getting that terminal degree). I lead a national book group and have a full-time job greeting my 2026. I chose me.

That is what happens sometimes in the dawning of a new day. Instead of letting muscles atrophy by being immobile (I started back walking and stretching!), I pushed through moments of ache and being uncomfortable so that I can see clearly what is possible. I didn't let fear of what-if and they-are-riding-out-the-clock (still not in my house, yet) prevent me from reaching into what I didn't know was there. 

The faith that leads us is more than just our prayers, it is our actions and what we cast into the universe. 

For me, that is to still consider what can be, what is possible, what is left to do.

©2025. Gazing out at the cars going by to days yet unfolding, sipping a latte, pondering what will be.