Sparkle

I love a morning that sparkles. I like being present and in love with everything awakening to the sun. I like how all the big and small beings around me seem to know how to turn into the light and receive its first-fall of blessing, as the dawn announces the new day.

I like when the dew is heavy, how the light turns the asparagus fronds into an ocean of droplets, each one blazing like a diamond. I imagine riding a boat through all that brightness. I like how the sparkling of the morning seems to have no comprehension of too much or too bright or too bold. I like how the birds don’t sing in the morning as if they have done it all before. There is a first-day spirit spilling into the now with their song. Each day fresh. Each morning its own presence.

I like how the yellow glow of the goldfinch rises and falls in its undulating pattern over the garden, each rise catching the light and turning my attention again and again. I like what gets made in me as the day begins. I feel both the anchor of it and a beckoning to sail forth with a new spirit of freedom. “Fresh, solid and free” as my daily prayer from Thich Nhat Hahn proclaims.

Within hours of being dazzled with the sparkle of the new day, I am sitting with someone in spiritual direction. I witness what stirs. I see what rises. I share some observations. I offer a few questions. Simple work. Simple, loving presence. The joy and gratuity of walking alongside another. Nothing needs to happen, yet something usually does. The language settles. Something softens. Something opens. A memory is connected with the present. A judgment is released. An old hurt flares and then finds its place in time. The sparkle is often more subtle in spiritual direction than the dazzle-drama of the dawn. Slowly there is a filling. Slowly there is a turning, and then I see so clearly the light before me, and I witness for the second time this day, the way the light changes everything.

Love and Peace, Glenn

[This post appeared yesterday in the Oasis newsletter. oasismin.org]