morning has broken

everyone has to get up at the beginning of the day

Welcome back, readers, and welcome, new readers.

One thing that pretty much all eight billion of us on this planet have to do every day is get out of bed and get going, so we thought we’d write about how each of us experiences that part of our day. We’ll lead off with something aspirational from the sixteenth century, it’s by playwright Thomas Dekker:

To awaken each morning with a smile brightening my face;
to greet the day with reverence for the opportunities it contains;
to approach my work with a clean mind;
to hold ever before me, even in the doing of little things, the Ultimate Purpose toward which I am working;
to meet men and women with laughter on my lips and love in my heart;
to be gentle, kind, and courteous through all the hours;
to approach the night with weariness that ever woos sleep and the joy that comes from work well done
– this is how I desire to waste wisely my days.

And we’ll follow that up with a recommendation for another excellent piece of writing on getting up in the morning: Breakfast Days: Beginning and Belonging in the Morning by Esther Keiderling. This one looks at a unique aspect of Bruderhof breakfasts and is a great introduction to our comments below.

Marianne – in Woodcrest, upstate New York

“Are we rested? Have we had beautiful sleep?” [Gollum] said. “Let’s go!”
“We aren’t, and we haven’t,” growled Sam. “But we’ll go if we must.”

“If we must” is how I feel most days about getting out of bed. Those few minutes are not my favorite time of day, but on the other hand there’s coffee.

Once that threshold has been crossed, though, the beginning of the day is a good time. The whole family is home (except for the odd times when someone has gotten a very early start for a school or work trip), and everyone, with various degrees of focus, is trying to do the same thing, which is to sit down to breakfast together. Believing that “the sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal”¹ (and because we sometimes don’t manage to coordinate a family meal in the evenings during the work week), we do this every morning. I am very fond of breakfast foods: eggs in their many wonderful forms, bacon and sausage, hash browns, buttered toast, marmite toast, toast with honey, jam, or nutella, coffee cakes and pastry, muffins, oatmeal and its warm weather cousin muesli, crepes, waffles, and yogurt if we’re feeling healthy. Kent is an excellent cook and by the time I’ve urged all five children out of bed he has breakfast on the table.

Before we eat we sing; there are a number of short “morning songs” in the Bruderhof repertoire:

Sunlight, oh sunlight, come now, all burning bright
Shine in my heart aright after the night.

or

Morning has come, the board is spread
Thanks be to God, who gives us bread.

or

God has created a new day, silver and green and gold.
Live that the sunset may find you worthy its gifts to hold.

After we sing we pray, and then we have breakfast. On days that we’re not rushed, Kent will read something aloud after we eat: a few pages from our family reader, an article about an interesting natural phenomenon or archeological discovery (a fascination of mine which my kids therefore get to hear about). Wordle, Connections, and the NYT mini-crossword are group activities at the end of breakfast. (On Sunday, we are joined for a more leisurely breakfast by my parents and Lori, a family friend, and at the end of the meal each child pairs with an adult for an extremely tense Wordle competition.) Then we do dishes and go about our day: the kids get ready for school and Kent heads to work. Like all Bruderhof mothers, I get an hour at the beginning of the work day for housework before heading for my office.

(Our five kids are between the ages of five and fourteen. It does sometimes happen that they all get up promptly and in a good mood, make their beds, and help put breakfast on the table. Some days we have omelets and bacon and coffee cake and a friendly conversation. Most mornings are as you would expect, and we’re happy to achieve toast and jam and a short devotion. Some mornings are a running disaster of last minute homework, misplaced garments, and vile moods. But even if you can’t do a good thing well, you should at least try to do it. It’s a good thing to start the day with your household, to sing and pray and enjoy food and coffee together, to thank God for another day, “his mercies are new each morning.”² We’re teaching our children that it’s worth making an effort to start the day remembering the Creator and enjoying his good gifts of food and fellowship. Eventually we hope they’ll manage to make their beds without prompting.)

Norann – in Danthonia, New South Wales, Australia

I have always been a morning person, and absolutely love the beginning of a new day. For me, the early morning is an entire world that I get to inhabit before the “real” day begins.

My first thought on waking is the wondrous realization that I get to live another day. Then: What gifts will this day hold? What adventures or challenges? What will I learn? Who will I meet? How will God use this one day to His glory?

I have learned, however, it’s best to hold these thoughts in my heart – at least until my husband (who is definitely an owl, not a lark) is on his third cup of coffee. Chris holds with Oscar Wilde, that “only dull people are brilliant at breakfast.”

A few years ago, when our three sons were younger and still at home, our family’s morning routine looked much like Marianne’s. But now, with an almost empty nest, things are different.

I rise at 5:15 am – a habit formed as a child, when farm chores were part of our family’s waking – and make myself a double-shot flat white (Australian for a strong coffee with milk).

Then I set my mind on fire with Wordle and my heart on fire with the Word.

I walk. I journal. I pray.

I try to encourage people who have messaged me overnight with difficult things. I try not to let discouragements from yesterday cloud the promise of today. I ask God to help my heart hold the suffering of the world in a way that helps me focus on and do something about the suffering of my neighbor next door.

By this time, my menfolk are stirring. (The boys, and even Chris, are not above an early start themselves, particularly if it’s in pursuit of fish or game at first light. Not so much on Mondays, though.)

While rustling up some vittles is an essential part of meeting the nutritional needs of the youngest member of our household, for Chris and me at least, mornings are less about breakfast and more about beginning the day in gratitude. In addition, after these moments of togetherness with anyone who is in our home, we are aware that the rest of the day will be filled with work, travel, study, sport, or community activities – and, therefore, starting the day together as a family is a gift.

So – after discussing the upcoming events or challenges of the day – we always share a scripture aloud, reflect on it and pray together. Then we hug goodbye, always say “I love you” (and sometimes “I’m sorry” because we are regular humans who need forgiveness often), and Chris and I with our dog, Bear, take a(nother) morning walk.

These beginning moments of benediction often become a blessing I return to in my heart throughout the day, especially when the daily dramas of life ebb and flow.

Mornings are the first bookend of the day: they give me (and my family) a chance to stand up straight and be counted, and to be reminded that today is the first day of the rest of our lives.

P.S: I love cooking breakfast for as many people as possible. My favorite menus to build are: smashed avocado on toast, fried potatoes with homemade sausage, french toast with cinnamon-y egg and a dusting of powdered sugar, mile-high biscuits,

buttermilk coffee cake

or orange coffee-cake

or my mom’s homemade, overnight cinnamon rolls.

Trudi – in Spring Valley, south-west Pennsylvania

Mornings of my childhood were special, as could be expected in a house with a lot of girls. Certainly more exciting than my morning routine now, but I’ll get back to that. Below, my sister Erika (11 years my senior) remembers what our dad’s role was in the morning. We can assume that Mom was either feeding the baby or running the bedroom hair salon or both. (We all wore our hair in two braids from the time we were five or six).

We girls were not known for springing lightly from our beds in the early morning, so the daily task of getting the family up fell on Dad. For years, his first move was to put on a record on the vintage record player that occupied space in our living room—any record that was handy: Korean Children’s Choir or Medical Mission Sisters—Dad wasn’t picky. In theory, the music was meant to rouse those that slumbered. In practice, it pleasantly lulled us as we snoozed. Until the day, that is, on which Dad discovered Bird Songs of North America. This was truly the most annoying record I have ever encountered, and it got me, at least, out of bed in no time! Instead of lilting melodies, we would wake up to the smug voice of the announcer droning: “Bird songs of North America. Cardinal: Tweedle-dee, tweedle-dee. Eastern Bluebird: Tweedle-pip, tweedle-pip.” And so on. Since one or more of us would invariably lunge from under the covers to turn it off before we all went crazy, it proved a great favorite with Dad! I remember him playing this infamous record for weeks, until the protests became overwhelming, and someone (presumably) got rid of the horrible thing.

Not surprisingly, there are some bird calls Erika dislikes to this day. I, on the other hand, was spared the bird songs and fondly remember some albums that awoke me and so do our neighbors of the time—less fondly. Sound of Music and Tchaikovsky’s Serenade for Strings were tolerated though. Dad made the mistake of playing Amahl and the Night Visitors once and moments later we had a visitor of our own: a neighbor with a noise complaint.

Now I’ve had a quarter century of getting up in the morning. I have always loved the morning: the idea of getting up in enough time to read something, perhaps even go outside, make a cup of coffee, and start the day right, remains just a good idea. I still love mornings though. Sunday is the one day on which I manage to do all of the above.

I am the type that wakes up hungry every morning, so a breakfast meal is a must. As a single, my choice is to eat alone (I do that once a week) or get out of my comfort zone and graciously accept the hospitality of others at 6:30 a.m. Read Esther’s lovely exposition for more details.

I don’t like being a guest. I’d rather make and serve breakfast to other people, the role of hostess is much more enjoyable to me. But on occasion, I do get to cook omelets and to my great relief, I also usually get to help wash dishes. That is something I love to do!

My favorite Sunday morning destination ever.

Of course, the moments before breakfast are precious moments to dedicate the day to God. Sometimes I manage to read a devotion, other times I do that later in the day. But always, I can pray and turn my heart to the One who knows and loves me best. Dietrich Bonhoeffer understood mornings well. I have found the following to be true:

The morning prayer determines the day. Squandered time of which we are ashamed, temptations to which we succumb, weaknesses and lack of courage at work, disorganization and lack of discipline in our thoughts and in our conversation with other men, all have their origin most often in the neglect of morning prayer.

One of Bonhoeffer’s prayers has become a prayer that I often read in the morning, as it so well expresses my need for God. The last line in the translation I have is,

Lord, whatever this day may bring, your name be praised!

An unforgettable sunrise. East Sea, South Korea.

What we’re enjoying

Trudi

Spring!

One brave blossom amid the last snowflakes of winter. . .

Marianne

I too am enjoying Spring, and with it a favorite time of day that is not the morning: the early evening. We live in an apartment house that is also home to nine other families, six of whom have young children. Other families with children live nearby, and – now that the days are longer and warmer – the lawns, sandbox, swings, and trees outside the house are host every evening to over a dozen children. (“Now we can play together,” says my 5-year-old daughter to her best friend as they approach the house, home from a day of play-based activities in kindergarten.) Impromptu games organize themselves on the lawn, and the paved road is excellent for chalk art or two-squares games. Oma Veronica, who lives on the first floor, needs help watering her garden, so out come the miniature watering cans. Some evenings all the dolls and teddies are brought out for a tea party under one of the trees. This year two very small girls who were babies last year are being introduced to the delights of dandelions and the sandbox, something the school-age girls are only too happy to assist with. A handful of older girls practice their soccer and volleyball skills, and on the next lawn over a dozen small boys and some dads are playing soccer or softball. It’s a magical time of day whose only downside is that it always ends too quickly (homework. supper. chores. bedtime).

Taken from the doorway of our house after everyone went in for supper

Norann

Bush Weddings.

I love them.

They usually take place in a woolshed (often one that has familial significance to the couple), or an old hall, or out in a paddock, or a combination of these.

There are native flowers everywhere – from tables to bridal bouquets:

There are unique entries with vintage cars, trucks, or beut utes:

There are lights and wholesome food (and funny stories about the deceased echidna which had to be dug out from under the floor) and rustic tables filled with friends and strangers who know they will all be family by the end of the celebration.

There are children, everywhere, waiting for the formal parts to be done so they can play “spotlight” in the twilight.

And there are moments – some captured on camera, some held in the heart – that you know you will carry in your heart forever.

That’s all for this time! Enjoy the season you are in.

1. CS Lewis

2. Book of Lamentations at the third chapter, twenty-second verse