Good Morning!

Good morning.

 

I am looking at sunrise over the Cascades and thinking about Aunt Vi.

Streaks of pink and gold and colors impossible to pin down are changing by the second.  The light outlines and gives clarity to the mountains and infuses hope into the coming day.  A new dawn. 

"Good morning". 

It was Violet Hager's standard greeting.  Phone call, letter, in-person conversation - - didn't matter, day or night.  Birthday or Christmas card - they all began with, "Good Morning". 

So we will miss that incongruous greeting now that we have lost Willa's Aunt Vi to the river of life and time.  But I am aware of her presence and the wisdom of her greeting as we step into Advent.

Advent marks the beginning of the new year for churches of the western tradition.

Like the morning, Advent is an expectant and hopeful time.  Some mornings for my prayer time, I light my little oil lamp and watch it rival the glow of dawn.

What better way to approach Christmas during this time of waiting and hope than to greet it with an enthusiastic "Good Morning"?

The new day lies ahead; anything can happen.  We are walking toward the birth of hope.  It is eternally a new day.  Good morning!

Violet Hager was old enough to have met the artist Georgia O'Keffe (she came to her rescue when the young artist was too preoccupied to keep her Jeep's oil level full). And Vi was young enough to welcome this similarly unorthodox Keefe into her family.  As elder stateswoman of her extended family, she could have made my entry into that family a rough ride. 

Instead, I found a vibrant and energetic welcome from the woman who insisted that "Take Me out to the Ballgame" be sung at all family gatherings.  I think she may even have cheated to declare us the winners of the sand sculpture contest at Rockaway Beach (although Willa, Jake, and I did have a fabulous design...)

Advent is like that.  God is like that.  No matter what time of day or night, there is the prospect of a new day wrapped in an enthusiastic welcome. 

Start over, be new, walk forward refreshed. 

Good morning!