There is a moment each day when it is morning before it is morning. Darkness still hovers over the deep. Those who wait for the dawn can hear it even before they see it.
At first there are only the slight sounds of attunement as a chorus of birds assembles. Slowly they gather into one great concerted song of supplication: Let it begin! Let us begin! May it begin again!
The birds are of one accord. They do not take the dawn for granted. When it bursts upon them, once again, as on the first day of creation, they give thanks once again for this once only day, to begin. A "Morning Offering" How we begin a day affects how we will live that day. Many of us start the day in a rather mechanical way, jarred into motion by the ring of an alarm clock or the sound of coffee dripping. We have set the time to begin, or so we believe, and thus we take the possibility of each new day for granted. All the gadgets of technology leave us with the illusion that we are, or should be, in control of how our day begins, proceeds, and ends. Automatically we move, in the presumption of life.
In this culture, it is not easy to awaken to the marvelous gift of each day and to recognize that it is not necessarily so. We tend to take this ordinary beginning for granted, just as we take ourselves, and others, and the world—life itself— for granted. What we take for granted easily becomes just another thing in our lives, something else to be worked on, managed, or consumed. The realities we take for granted can no longer be recognized as amazing grace; they rarely astonish us into life and will never set us free. What we overlook begins to waste away. Will clean air and food come to us as a matter of course if we take the earth for granted? Can any relationships endure if they are merely taken for granted?