Sunday, September 27

O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice; in the morning I plead my case to you and watch.
—Psalm 5:3

When the annoying buzz of the alarm clock startles us from sleep, we seldom have the inclination to jump out of bed and welcome a new day. So, we push the snooze button, and return to our slumber for another five minutes.

We may be overly tired, or dreading another day at work, or trying to avoid facing the troubles and emotions of the day just a little bit longer. Sometimes we’re just too comfortable and don’t want to disturb our sweet peace. After a couple of snooze delays, however, we reluctantly pull ourselves out of bed and begin our morning.

Imagine that tomorrow morning, you had an appointment with God. Imagine that you were scheduled to have a conversation in private, with nothing to interrupt or perturb you. It's likely that you would not even need an alarm clock to wake up. You would simply awaken, because you were poised to wake. Poised for prayer. 

Poised to meet the Holy One. St. Benedict told his monks to rise without delay, open their eyes to the Divine light and attentively hear the Divine voice.  Every morning we have the invitation to meet the Holy One. Every morning we can rise to greet God. Every morning we can enter the Divine space where we can share our heart with God and feel the touch of heaven on our soul.

If we get into the habit of meeting the Holy One every morning, we might be surprised to find that we could retire our alarm clock and be rid of its annoying buzz forever.

Gracious God, let my first thought in the morning be a prayer of joyand my last thought before sleep, a prayer of gratitude.