Daybreak

At daybreak, that November morning I imagined that I heard the sound of birds landing, maybe it was a falcon, maybe it was an eagle. There were so many feathers. In my heart mingled grief and hope as my heart tried to remain clean and pure, and my mind tried to allow only noble thoughts of goodness, compassion, and mercy.

I am not one who enjoys speaking early in the morning. I prefer thinking and writing and sometimes revising. For I have learned to accept and sometimes expect my fallibility. I am always making typographical or grammatical errors. But, each noise that my ears detect or each color my eyes recognize creates a thousand sentences which I sometime try to capture and preserve. Within my heart there is often gladness, hope, and goodness.

There is a desire to learn life with humility, charity, compassion, and mercy. Goodness encourages me to write down my thoughts, to say prayers, to attend Mass, to forgive myself and others as needed, to be merciful and gentle when dealing with others. Some days I am better at this than others, but everyday I try.

Each day through my own silence, I am able to think about and understand unconditional and universal love. I allow myself to say little short prayers frequently and automatically. Every prayer is beautiful. Every prayer inspires another prayer. Every prayer connects us to each other and to every other Christian who has said a prayer to God before us. I believe that prayers are love, that they contain and foster hope, peace, and goodness.

I sometimes wish that my vocabulary was more classical so that I could describe love in more formal lofty terms and so that I could describe prayer in more pastoral approachable terms and then connect both definitions with a simple image.

That morning I created an algebraic formula where silence, observation, compassion, reflection, meditation were the main variables which could be arranged together to equal prayer and sometimes love. But love is not always pure and love is not always love but attachment. Attachment can be the antithesis to love.

Heartily I move toward God.

My heart sometimes forces my tongue to state gainsayings against that which isn’t just, or fair. My soul and heart both observe the bitterness in the world and only want peace and calm for every human being, every living thing. This is not the time to want laurels. This is a time to work for God, to use our lives in his service. All reason should move us in a direction of charity, humility, simplicity, understanding, and love. Reason should move us to serve constantly and filled with a beautiful and undying hope.

And, as humans we must not forget but be prepared to greet grief when it arrives. We must be prepared for the perfumed scents of jealousy and lust which can conceal many dangerous and threatening thoughts which can destroy or hinder a relationship with God.

It is my hope that my only fortune in this life be God’s love and God’s mercy and that all that I do and all that I am please him and help others to find their way to him. I know that sacrifice is necessary.

At daybreak, in the eastern sky the clouds are delicate, beautiful like feathers, fine soft feathers, noble honest feathers and yet-

My mind feels the cool breeze, observes the scene; my heart stirs up a kind prayer or two; my soul overflows with hope, compassion, mercy, respect, and understanding.