Morning Witness

Morning Witness –

Many mornings I sit in the dark with my first cup of coffee. When the weather allows, I sit on our screened porch in the wicker swing that belonged to my grandmother’s mother—we called her grandmother great.

I am a witness to the birthing of a new day. A chorus of birds, each singing their own unique song together, accompanies me as we witness the slow transformation of darkness in to light. Sometimes I feel like more than an observer. I feel like I’m a part of it—I am being transformed.

The words of Virginia Schurman, a ”Weighty Quaker” I met 20 years ago through the Baltimore Yearly Meeting Spiritual Formation Program, sometimes guide my meditation. At one of our retreats, Virginia led us in to a time of silence with this query—“Do you have a sense of new life coming?” Sometimes I also remember the questions Howard Thurman says we must ask ourselves—“Where am I going? Who will go with me?”

And so the new day begins. If I remain grounded, these three questions will guide my life today.  

August 22, 2016