“If then your whole body is full of light . . .it will be wholly bright.“  Jesus in The Gospel of St. Luke, chapter 11

“To become aware is to see the light.” John O’Donahue

Dawn marks a daily threshold; light driving out darkness. Each of us cross that divide without giving it much thought. This time of year invites us to ponder this primordial miracle.  To do so you must wake up early and earlier in order to experience, yes, to bask in this magical metamorphosis.  Slowly the sun’s rays, seeking and searching to find a place or a person to shine upon, begin to rend the darkness.  Surely to experience this is to get a foretaste of resurrection; of crossing over from death to life, of considering what it will be like to close your eyes in the sleep of death only to open them to the glorious light of heavenly eternity.

Dawn is a holy time, a serene time, soaked in the sacred silence that reflects and reminds of the first creation, when light broke in upon the darkness and ushered in life.  Life in all forms, all of which depended upon light to live.  The sun and the moon ordered and sustained life.  Trees and plants opened their verdant arms and tendrils to soak in the light, to live and to give life to others.  Oceans came alive with the light, their depths teeming with all forms of life, their waters soaked, saturated and serving as the source of life.  Animals and people relied upon light, worshipped the light which distilled the darkness where the predators and enemies of life lived and moved and had their being.

Dawn is the time to light a candle and watch the flame flicker; the imagination being carried away by the fleeting shapes and tiny shadows created by that miniature flame.  Dawn is the time to light a fire, perhaps for warmth, but primarily for the mesmerizing effect it has on body, mind, and soul.  To contemplate the flames, consuming that which was once alive, watching them dance, transporting you to a place of perfect peace.

Dawn is the time to stand at the tomb, like that woman first did, reflecting on all of the darkness that has threatened to overcome, to kill the aspirations of one’s life that have gone up in flames, and to simultaneously be renewed by the promise of a new day that drives out the despair and delivers you over into the broad place that is filled with the brilliant radiance of God’s resurrection.  It is the time to personally experience the eternal truth, fulfilled by the One who is the light. “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot extinguish it.”

Dawn breaks upon the darkness and drives it away, not with force or violence, but with soft, subtle, and sublime tactics first practiced in the beginning by the One who is the beginning.  The dawn invites the flora and fauna to come out of hiding and to live fully.  Always the morning light does it’s delightful dance, inviting each one to partner, to participate, to luxuriate in the lovely beams that illuminate the eyes, the soul, the spirit, reminding that there will always remain shadows.  Shadows of what was.  But more importantly reassuring that it is not what was that matters, but what is and what will be.  And thus in time we rise, and enter into the morning light, knowing that just as The Light is Presence, we will be present in and with the Light.  Forever.

“Every morning

the good news pours

through the field

Touching every blossom

                        Every stem

                                    And each of them,

On the instant offers to be part of it—

                        Offers to lift and hold, willingly

                                    The vast burden of light

All day.

In my life

            I have never seen it to fail—

                        Flower after flower

Leaf after pearly leaf,

            To the acre,

                        To the massy many,

                                    Is silvered, is flooded;

And such voices spangle among it—

            Larks and sparrows—

                        All those small souls—

Are everywhere tossing the quick wheels of pleasure

            From their red throats

                        As they hang on—

As though on little masts of golden ships,

            To the tops of the weeds—

                        And that’s when I come—

That’s when I come, crying out to the world;

            Oh give me a corner of it

                        To lift also, to sing about, to touch

                                    With my wild hands—and they do.”[1]

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[1] “Morning Light” by Mary Oliver