Finally a cool Saturday morning. It’s been so long since I last stepped outside for a slow leisurely stroll. This morning was great. Walking in the cool of the morning. It’s no wonder that Genesis talks about walking with God in the cool of the day. It has to be one of the most heavenly times of the day. I love those few moments when it all seems so much less oppressive, when things feel light and airy. Sure, the day is coming, with all the heat and toil and work that we all do. But in the morning, it just feels good.
Maybe that’s why the story of the Garden talks about that time of day. We need mornings, and the memory of mornings every day to help us get through it all. We need the story of the first mornings of humanity to situate ourselves in the larger story. But that gets me thinking. Do we ever read the Garden of Eden as refreshing? Do we ever think of it as encouraging? Or do we too easily get blinded by the fall. Do we only ever think of Eden as a remote paradise spoiled by the fall? Do we only think of it as that time before time that we can never get back to, or as that place where everything went wrong?
Why not see it as a refreshing drink of water in the great long story of God’s care and love for humanity? Maybe the Garden is important not just ideo-theologically, but also ethico-practically. Maybe the early hours of humanities day can give us hope and strength to face the day we are in.
So the whole story of creation the whole placement within this garden might just be like waking up and feeling a cool breeze before the heat of the summer. It does something to our constitution, makes us fundamental difference in who we are. But it does so on a level which is not strictly idea based, but which is actually a grounding of the liturgical process of everyday life. It grounds us in a place of refreshing. It teaches us to revere the morning, to drink and to enjoy the good things God has given us. It teaches us to long for God’s presence, to seek it in the earliest hours of our existence, in the earliest moments of our day. And I think it teaches us to enjoy God. But it’s not just the idea teaching of information it is or should be thoroughly enjoyable, so that we can enjoy and find rest in God gifts of new days and cool mornings.
I think we have to look at the Garden again, we have to look at this place of enjoyment because it is a refreshing, hope-inspiring moment for our day. Take a walk in the cool of the day. Be refreshed by that marvelous gift. but then take it another step forward look for the recreations, all things made new. I’m guessing it won’t be just a morning, but something better still. So while we look back to the morning, and while we enjoy the mornings we have, we also enjoy what is to come, waiting for it. And we remember a special morning which was different from all the others, the one where Christ arose. So that a shift occurred in the normal flow of ordinary mornings. What was ordinarily just a refreshing bit before life continued on, was also the foundational moment of new life.
So I think there is a lot in mornings. Have a nice one.
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