Maybe you remember the scene from It's a Bug's Life. It rises on the old camper and an even older abandoned truck. The sun goes down and the bug light comes up ... and then we hear, "No, Harry, noooo! Don't look at the light!" To which Harry responds, "I can't help it. It's so beauuuutiful." Immediately we hear the zap of that bug light and see Harry's lifeless little bug body hit the roof of the lean-to and fall into a tin bucket. You've got to admit, in a very warped since of way, it's a funny scene and one I have quoted many times over the last 14+ years.
I had one of those moments this past week. I was sitting in my Jefferson rocker in my den very early Sunday morning when I noticed the sun's rays coming through the pines and stretching long across my backyard. The beauty of the warmth on that icy morning caught my attention and I found I could not take my eyes off of it. And the longer I sat, the more I was being drawn to it. I just had to get out there in it before the earth's rotation caused it to change its form. I knew I had only minutes, and so I slipped on my bedroom shoes, threw a blanket around me, grabbed my coffee and headed out the door into the below freezing temp. At first, I stopped on the deck; after all, there was a small streak coming across there, too. But I found that was not enough. I HAD to be in the one ray flaming like an arrow out of the darkness across my backyard. And so at the risk of being the topic of the neighbors' breakfast conversations, I walked silently and reverently out in the middle of the yard and let myself be engulfed by the light born from the earth's turning. At first I just stood there with eyes closed and face turned to receive the splendor. And then I started turning ... around and around allowing myself to be completely bathed in the ray; until my movement quite unsuspectingly became a sacred morning dance. I just couldn't help it. After all, it was so beautiful!
I realize now that what I experienced was nothing short of worship. Not of the sun. Heaven forbid. But of the Creator of the Morning. The Giver of the Dawn. The Morning Song of Love Himself. Oh, how I long to wake up each day with the kind of awareness that calls forth grateful living and joyous outbursts of praise. How I long for my eyes to be opened to the Light that surrounds me ... that bears down upon me. How I long to be DRAWN into the radiant glory of His presence until my only response is, "I can't help it! It's so beautiful!"
Creator of the Dawning Sun, draw me with your eternal energy.
Filter your transforming glow through every inner fiber of mine
until I am transparent with the power of your enlightening beauty.
-- Joyce Rupp
"Satisfy us in the morning with Your steadfast love; so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days" (Psalm 90:14).
Just an ordinary moment...
