Unless we make Christmas an occasion to share our blessings, all the snow in Alaska won't make it white. --Bing Crosby
What is the first thing you thought of this morning?
"It's the perfect day to sleep in." I probably was not quite that articulate (my first hour students understand pre-coffee me), but the chilly rain, the dark dank sky, and my heavy warm down comforter spoke to me of watching movies, making a fire (well, if I had a fireplace), reading a good book (all the way through), and just enjoying being tucked in and warm.
The cruelest thing is to leave a nice sleepy sleep to get up at 6:00 in the morning. I have a hard time coaching myself to get out of bed. I can easily make sense of sleeping until 7:15 and giving myself a half and hour to get ready. Once I'm out of bed, I see the error of my ways...there's no way I can get ready for school that fast...what was I thinking?
Eric Spaperston, a guy that created a documentary called "The Journey" says that his idea of success is "waking up in the morning excited and going to bed fulfilled." I think that is so well said--and very true. We are put here on Earth to enjoy God: through our relationships with others, through His creation; to praise Him with our actions...if I think of my days like that, I see again (an over-and-over remembering) how I can wake up excited.
We've been reading all of these poets in class that tell us to live each day fully, to leave a legacy, to allow our souls to rise and stretch and live. It's inspiring and, well, tiring all at once. I think I love to be inspired, but it's harder for me to really do anything about it. I either get lodged in the details (I admit, I think too much), or I sit in the moment of inspiration until it's deflated and long gone.
In this cozy season of warmth and holidays, it is so easy to feel comfort, to cling to what we know. I want to live a new kind of life, to shrug off the familiar, to wake my soul and get up to meet what this Day might bring.
Just let me get one more cup of coffee first.