5AM. I open my eyes to a spreading blush on the horizon. The new day exhales gently through an open window. Two birds trill in bright duet, one with pert chirps in the foreground and another providing long notes of counterpoint behind it. The first tulips uncurl in emphatic cream and fire. A calico cat stretches and leaps from its bed in the flowerpot. Single notes ring deep and clear from the chimes, slow in even counts like Your footsteps falling one by one as you walk in the cool of the day. Even my own thoughts sing--sweet Hosannas rise in comforting repetition.
It feels like Eden. In a few moments, though, I know that a rude truck or a neighbor's bad muffler will break the serenade. Sometime later, the flowers will wilt and drop. Certainly, at just the opportune moment, the cat will reach up for a bird and assassinate it just for fun. And my own mind already drifts and clouds with self-concern.
Even as serene echoes of a world at one time surely perfect slide away like brilliant leaves escaping in swirls on a giggling brook, they both sadden and console. Once, in the beginning, this day's beauty would not have broken. Once, relentless entropy would not have held sway. I would rise from a fragrant bed confident and without regret. That will not happen today. While I yet live, it will never happen.
But in this moment, my world shares Eden's lovely memory. The pattern of creation still bears sweet marks of Your pronouncement that it is good and You still reach into it with glory. A rising sun lays its bright glow on the topmost branch of the old oak where a single blackbird sits as sentinel, red epaulets on both shoulders. I hold my breath. Don't go just yet. Stay with me a little longer. I watch the bird, only clean blue behind him, as raises his eyes to heaven, tips his head back, and opens his throat to sing.
God saw all that He had made, and it was very good. Genesis 1:31
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