I used to get up at 5am only on Sundays, when it’s always been a matter of arriving at church with enough time to get settled in, prepare, go over the sermon and whatever else might be happening that morning.
Now I arise at 5am every day. I look forward to it like little else. I’m alone with my thoughts, I’m as fresh and alert as I’m going to be all day, and no one’s bothering me. I cherish this time, though I wish I could make better use of it from a writing standpoint. More often than not, what gets recorded in here is a rather pedestrian recounting of one thing or another. Or it’s another political rant disparaging Trump and (still) trying to get my head around the fact that he’s actually the POTUS.
In any event, I love early mornings. But it’s not because it’s my way of getting ready for “another day in the trenches.” It’s more that it feels like my childhood Hide and Seek place, under all the clothes in a closet where no one could find me. Blissful, self-imposed isolation. Peace and quiet.
My vocational life since seminary has been a portrait of playing against type, practically every day a stretch beyond my comfort zone. And all I’ve wanted of late is to flee to that quiet place and stay there.
Move beyond my comfort zone? So cliche. Comfort zone, shmomfort zone. Enough already. Been there and done that for way. too. long.
