New Every Morning

By Patrick Neitzey

Small silver fingers of morning light creep over the ridge across from my front porch. Morning comes on slowly in our little valley. I stand and watch my dog peruse the hillside for just the right spot. I can’t hear the coffee brewing or the sounds of the old road below, but the morning is anything but silent. Every bird imaginable is making sound, robins, sparrows, Golden winged warblers, scarlet tanagers, and black-headed grosbeaks, even a Tom Turkey occasionally adds his voice to the cacophonous chorus. The air is so thick with sound, I wonder if their message ever gets across or if, maybe, the excitement of another sunrise cannot be contained and must come out in sound.

Deep calls unto Deep, and the sounds of the morning sing praises under green stained-glass ceilings of poplar, ash, and yellow birch. The near deafening sound of this ornithological choir is not a nuisance, but, rather, a welcome reminder that shouts and praises, songs and sounds, will go up to heaven even if I cannot muster it.

There, for a few brief moments, I am not the preacher or the pastor, not the theologian or the teacher, but I am the congregant washed in the waters of morning dew. In the mundane stirrings of the morning, while the dog is out, before the coffee pot dings, before the daily cynicism of zoom meetings and emails takes hold, the sounds of creation remind me that, new every morning is God’s life-giving love, mercy, and grace. The changing of the seasons, the singing of birds, the raising and setting of the sun are not in my control. In this moment I remember that in the beginning God sang the mountains into existence and traced streams and rivers with Their hand, filled the lungs of the warblers and the sparrows to sing praises, and out of Their abundant love created all things.

At the excitement of the morning, the coming of a new day, may our hearts and minds, and maybe even our lungs, be filled with love for all the world.