what the morning brings

I go to bed with a prayer, Lord, wake me in time. And in the middle of walking through my college cafeteria in a bow tie, my eyes flutter open and I know it’s time. I don’t look at the clock, but I don’t have to. It’s dark, but I can tell it’s morning.

Sometimes the morning brings new mercies and other times, those mercies seem far off. But this is a new mercy morning as I remember the night before. Friends were here, and we sat with sock feet on our sofa. We talked about the real and the gritty, about the fears and the why’s of our faith. We prayed for belief and we shared the serious and the not so much. And as I sat, the low-grade anxiety I had been living with began to slow. The whirring in my heart began to quiet. And the body of Christ showed up in these people as they expressed themselves. But Himself. But them – the mystery of Christ in us, our hope.

This morning, I sit early in the dark and read Colossians. I thank Him for the waking, as He is so faithful to do when I ask. It’s as if every night when I go to bed, He longs for me to ask for a waking. And when I do, He does. You may say just set an alarm! and I could. But this is better.

We’ve been talking about art (or haven’t you noticed?) and it’s funny to me that I’ve had so much to say about it. Every time I sit to write, these are the things that come. And so I say them, and you receive them, and it is a gift to me. I think of this community of people who come, who read, who bear witness to truth. And then, you go and make your art in your worlds and my friends in my living room last night, they do the same thing, and it is beautiful, all of it.

And then I think of Ryan on The Office last night, who said his new years resolution was to live his life like it’s an art project. And I know the writers are making some kind of statement about that, but I think how it should be true even if they are making fun of it. And then Kevin comes and puts an “f” in front of the art, and I laugh hysterically because I am in middle school, apparently.

But it’s still true, the art project life. And so I think about that in the early, as the sky turns pink and fades to light. I hear them shuffling around upstairs and I know it’s time to begin to swim around in the living.