Finally a Sunrise

I am sitting in bed, listening to today's Pray as You Go and watching the sunrise out my third floor window. Purpley-blue clouds have layered themselves above the horizon, but just at its edge, behind the two tall steeples of the church in the distance, the light of the coming sun streaks across the sky in a deep yellow.

When I came to seminary last year, I was assigned a room on the other side of the hallway, which provided me with some spectacular sunsets, visible in fragments through the massive trees out front ~ but those same trees blocked out the light each morning. The first time that I happened to visit someone across the hall early in the day, I realized that I needed to make a move. As a morning and sunlight-affected person, I struggled to get up each day in the dreariness of the western side of the building while, just steps away on the eastern side, my friend's room was filled with light.

And so here I am. When I arrived in December, the first task I accomplished was to move the furniture around into a rather odd arrangement that permits me to see out the huge set of windows from my bed. I thought that even if I didn't feel like moving from the bed, which is usually the case these days, I would still be able to see the sunrise. But then the weather proceeded to defeat my modest goal, offering precipitation in one form or another every single morning that I have been in town.

Until today. As I finish writing, the clouds have largely overtaken the sky and the yellow light is considerably muted, except for the miniscule hyphen that is the sun itself, just peeking over the horizon. But it has been a very good 20 minutes. The sadness never leaves, but the light tries to break through.