By Phil Wood
During the summers, when I was a boy, my parents
periodically would send my brother and me off to spend a few days or a week
with Grandma and Grandpa Wood. They had a house trailer near a lake in the
lush, rolling hills of southeastern Michigan. I loved it there.
Things were simpler in those days. Aside from helping with
the dishes, I had very little to worry about. The days rolled lazily by and I
would fall to sleep each night without a care in the world.
Grandma and Grandpa would always give up their bed when the
kids were there, and I got to sleep with my head right by the open window in
the back bedroom of the trailer. I would nod off, breathing the cool night air,
and sleep like a baby all night long.
My favorite part of all this, however, was waking up in the
morning – a memory I still cherish today. I woke up naturally, with nothing but
the cooing of a mourning dove to gently guide me from slumber to consciousness.
It seemed to come from someplace far away and grow nearer until I was fully
awake, and that beautiful call was crystal clear in the crisp morning air.
I would lay there just listening for a while, the sound
echoing in my soul. Then I would prop myself up on my elbow and look out the window.
Heavy dew would be sparkling on the grass. The mist would be rising in the
morning sun. And I would be mesmerized.
Sixty-some years later, things aren't quite so simple. Getting
to sleep is another story altogether. And waking up will never be the same.
Throughout my working years I awoke to an alarm clock – if I
wasn't already awake, sweating the day ahead of me. Now that I'm retired, if I
don't set an alarm, I'll miss the morning entirely. So, much to Marianne's
consternation, I do set an alarm.
It's not the natural awaking of my youth, but in summer the first thing I do is
go to the open window and listen for a dove.
Sometimes I'll hear one. Sometimes not. Mourning doves seem
to be fewer and farther between these days. But every time I do hear one, whether it's in the morning
or the cool of the evening, something primal happens in me. I feel the quiet
peace of a Michigan morning. And over time I have come to equate that sound and
that feeling – that deep, innocent peace – with the presence of God.
I take a deep breath. And all is well with the world.
Somewhere along the line, I came to see life itself as a
process of waking up: a long, slow, gentle, natural process of waking up to the
alluring call of the Dove. And what a beautiful awakening it has been: from darkness
into light, from blindness to sight, from deadness to new life.
Someday, I'll be fully awake – fully "alive to God in
Christ Jesus," as Paul would say. I'll prop myself up on my elbow and look
out the window. The Dove will be there on the sill. The dew will be sparkling
on the grass. The mist will be rising in the morning sun. I'll take a big, deep
breath. And all will be well.
For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die
again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin
once for all, but the life he lives, he lives to God.
In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in
Christ Jesus.
Romans 6:9-11
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