Thank you, Lord, for morning.
Each morning is a baby born,
a seedling sprouting,
a clean sheet of paper.
Each morning is a fresh start and a mystery to explore.
Today, Lord, I explored a small dirt lane
that led through a stand of virgin pine
where no logger’s saw,
in the pursuit of progress,
has ever toppled
these proud conifers.
Their straight, black trunks were contrasted
against the unspoiled white bark of paper birches.
The lake they surround was still and veiled in morning mist.
Loon with chick on her back
There, far from the madding crowd
was just the private performance of loons
calling to the wood ducks and
Canadian geese.
Wherever geese and whistler swan exchange
morning secrets, I am at home.
Do these timid and magnificent creatures
nestle in the reeds on eternal shores?
This new page of morning,
I will fill with praise and thanksgiving.
Thank You, Lord, that I can hold this pen—
this is Your sweet gift to me.
May the love letter I write on the page of this day
make Your great heart glad.
Sun-bleached sheets ready for the beds
My grandmother was legally blind. I remember her running her hands over the kitchen floor to see if there was anything gritty or sticky that she couldn’t see. She felt the sheets as she spread them, fresh from the sun-bleached clothesline, over the bed and tucked them into the corners of the mattress.
I see her hands making yeast rolls or egg noodles, her hands far more accurate than other bakers about the elastic texture of the dough because she saw with her hands.
Grandma’s hands sensed the texture of dough
She could read the words in her large-print Bible by holding a magnifying glass over the page while wearing her thick glasses. How she loved the scriptures, because she read the verses word by word.
As a child in the summer I sat with her on the fieldstone porch while she peeled peaches or apples or tomatoes to can for the winter. She always let me take a turn, too, at dashing the plunger into the churn when she was turning the rich cream from their two jersey cows into butter. She would tell me stories of growing up in Missouri and of her Irish Mahoney siblings on the farm.
Purple iris glistening with raindrop diamonds
It was when I got to spend the night with my grandparents that I learned how wonderful it was to see the morning. Sunrise was not to be missed! The sunbeams on the morning glory blossoms and the raindrop diamonds on the irises and gladiolas were rare and priceless gifts. Grandma would tenderly hold the blooms close to her eyes to see the shades of color and talk about the amazing gift of morning.
Morning. I still love morning best of all the times of the day. To see morning. To inhale morning fresh with dew. To smell the newness and hear the birds’ first songs at break of day and touch a new bud or hold the wonder of a purple or yellow iris bloom in my hand, still wet with last night’s rain—this is the gift of morning.
Morning at Gaither’s Pond
After my grandmother died, we found her incredibly worn large-print Bible. In its pages, was a folded paper with a poem on it in her handwriting. Where she had seen it or heard it, we never knew. I only know that years later two song writers set the poem to music. I attach it here, sung by Terry Blackwood and the Imperials. It’s called “The Secret”.
