Monday, July 10, 2006

The Sun (Also) Rises

Feeling like I was wasting my summer, due largely in part to the 10-month breakneck speed pace of life that came to a screeching halt and left me feeling like a used up Kleenex that couldn't find its way to the trash can, I decided to adopt a new routine recently. The main change involves getting up daily at 6 a.m. to take a good, long walk and early devotions. The change was easy at first because everything was fresh and new, sort of like people making home videos of themselves with their new camcorder just so they can watch them five minutes later. Sure enough, I crashed the next week, bored with the novelty and taken by the notion of more time in bed. Several mornings I've found myself dialoguing with myself about what a stupid decision it was to make such a dramatic switch in lifestyles but what a stupid decision it is to continue sleeping when the world around is waking.

I was delightfully happy in my naivety of the pre-8 a.m. world. As a walked the first day, I marvelled noticing that the sky in the east looked almost exactly the same at 6:30 a.m. as it did in the west the night before at sunset! Could it be that I could essentially watch two sunsets each day if I awoke early enough? Seconds later I realized what I was viewing is what is technically called "dawn."

"Amazing!" I thought, "this pre-8 a.m. world."

I also enjoyed the feeling of being up when I was still supposed to be in bed. It's the same feeling I had on Saturday mornings in the 1980s. Back then I would sneak out of bed at 5 a.m., turn on the black and white television in my room and watch "The Nature Boy" Ric Flair, Ricky "the Dragon" Steamboat, the Road Warriors and "The American Dream" Dusty Rhodes duke it out on NWA Wrestling on TBS. The volume would be turned down low enough not to interrupt my brother's snoring or wake my parents to realize what I was watching, giving the moment an added thrill. "What a way to start the weekend," I remember thinking at the time. "Risk and reward on the screen and in real life all at once. How much do you want it? Let me hear you! (hand held out cupping ear) Oh yeah, snap into it! Woo! To be the man, you gotta beat the man! I'm stylin' and profilin'! Don't sing it, just bring it!"

Wrestling doesn't do it for me now. Now I get excited about walking out my door and into a multitude of conversations being carried on by birds, happening upon a playful pair of foxes up to no good, feeling a slight chill from the still cool night air and listening to and talking with the Lord amidst relative silence. This pre-8 a.m. world is like another dimension! I have found the wormhole that leads to Warp Zone 5!

The struggle is that student life people are not supposed to be made for this type of thing, and it's hard getting out of a 2 a.m. to 10 a.m. sleep pattern, even when students haven't been around for two months.