Lauds…the Lighting of the Day

There’s something magical about the first light of the day. There’s a ‘waking up’ to the conscious state after being asleep. As we celebrate the coming of light we’re each destined to express the divine mystery in our own unique way. I’ve always loved the breaking of silence that comes long before the sun’s rise, the first bird to sing. As a youngster I was taken with curiosity and enthusiasm for the day, raised on a farm filled with the mystery of life. Now in my latter half of time in this body, entropy has made this task more challenging given the typical aches in the body. Yet, there’s tremendous gift to be recognized, honoring this special gift of the next breath. Brother David Steindl-Rast has written:

If we were to learn to avail ourselves of those countless opportunities to enjoy, to dwell in the gift of being alive, then, when the moment comes to do something difficult, we could see that, too, as an opportunity and gratefully take advantage of it. p. 31 “The Music of Silence”

He calls this celebration of the gift ‘joy’. It’s the kind of happiness that doesn’t depend on our expectations. He calls it our ‘wholehearted response to whatever opportunity is given to us in any moment’. Then we can be happy no matter what. He points out the mistake to think we’re grateful because we’re happy. Better to realize that happy is a necessary consequence of gratitude. Lauds is a perfect time of the day to fill with thanks for grace given in our rising, meeting life’s next breath.

There’s a guided meditation that’s nothing but breathing in “yes” and breathing out “thank you”. During this lighting of the day, it’s a beautiful way to fill with mana for finding strength in meeting whatever comes up. It’s fuel for holding positive energy and for dismissing negative, complaining thoughts. This is a wonderful time to re-affirm our vows to not cause harm, to foster harmony, to not take what hasn’t been offered, to be careful in our speech and relationships to others, and to commit to further awakening rather than numbing ourselves to sleep with intoxicants.

As a youngster, I held more concrete beliefs about the divine mystery. My ancestral religion, Lutheran, asked me to profess my belief in certain thoughts. Yet, my deeper relationship to the divine came in these early morning hours. This is where spirituality was found:

“Spirituality is not religion. It is a path for us to generate happiness, understanding, and love, so we can live deeply each moment of our life.” ‘The Art of Living” by Thich Nhat Hanh

I’ve heard that successful aging is practicing this ability to ‘live deeply each moment of our life’, to meet each moment new. Our joy is robbed when we lament the loss of what we could do in our youth or grow fear about our imminent entropy and surrender of the body. Today, I meet the lighting of the day in a different way, seeing it more as a lighting of the spirit. In youth I seemed to put more attention to waking the body and mind. Today, it’s more about finding balance and stability in the body/mind as the work/discipline is undertaken to waken spirit in readiness to the vast divine mystery. I see, hear, smell, taste and touch things more deeply. More work is put to ‘not taking things for granted’. We can deny impermanence, attaching to our achievements, material accumulations and any other number of identifications, or we can embrace the surprise of what comes up in pure wonder. Einstein said we can see nothing as a miracle or everything as a miracle. Lauds is the easiest time of the day for me to fill with awe for the miracle. It’s the time to humble ourselves in that which is so much bigger than our concept of who we are, a time for the ‘self to settle into the Self’, it’s a time to ‘be still and know God’.

Good morning sunshine… you light my spirit and fill me with strength to find the gift in the given.