Fourth Week of Advent: A Sunrise Prayer

Riding on our new Railrunner service between Albuquerque and Santa Fe, it's very easy to get lost in the landscape. As the train rolls just past the city limits of Albuquerque, our local mountain range is quite visible to the right. One cannot help but notice how the light plays with the shadows and shapes of the Sandia Mountains.
There is quite a different landscape on the return trip from Santa Fe in the evening. Again, sitting on the right-hand side of the train, I detect the Jemez Mountains much further in the horizon. The Jemez aren't as tall as the Sandias but the light from our Creator plays with them just as well.

So in that spirit of light, I want to share this poem from Praying Advent (Creighton University)

Thank you. What a gift this morning from you as I watched the blazing sunrise through a cloudy winter sky. It is hard getting up these dark mornings, Lord, and yet you gift me with a sight that I miss at other times of year, when the weather is warmer and the sun rises before I get up.

I stared out the window at the red and purple light, gloriously framed by the gold of the rising sun. "Be still, and know that I am God" was the only thing that came to me. I watched in silence, filled with a sense of your presence in my life.

I am filled with gratitude this day for such a treasure and could feel it and see it as a gift from you. Thank you for your love. Today, let me carry a sense of how much you love me to send me such a gift.

Let that awareness of your love change the way I treat others today. Let me be more reverent in the irritations of the day. I ask your help to move through my errands and holiday preparations today with peace and a sense of your sunrise in my heart. Your glory fills my spirit and I want only to give thanks with my life this day.