A Morning Prayer

There is an unmistakable silence in the air this Sunday morning.  Even as the sun has not broken into the darkness, neither does it seem that the noise which is somehow always present has broken into the quietness of the new day. It is a moment for anticipating what is surely to come.  The unexpected distant sound of a train whistle as the engineer pulls his load across a crossing reminds me that this moment of emptiness is not going to last forever.  Soon it will fill with the stuff of life and the filling will surely be filled with life's noise.  

In these years of being away from the frantic call of the working world, I have become a fan of the still silence.  While I have for a long time known it was worth finding even when in the world of urban environments where unnatural sounds are ever present, these post pulpit years where morning breaks in the stillness of the creation on the farm have had an unexpected transformational power.  Mornings like this one have soul nurturing power.  Some mornings it seems that there is Someone sitting in the silence with me and like me, He does not always find it necessary to speak.  

There are many words which have become like guideposts in my journey from where I was to where I am going and one of those words is Presence.  He is always with us. This I know and believe.  Yet, as the quiet mornings stack on one another through the course of a season, the sense of Presence becomes not just expected on a Sunday morning, but on any morning and at any minute through the day it unfolds for me.  "Thank You, Father God, for coming in this quiet hour and for allowing it to be a promise of Presence throughout the day.  Amen."