Stillness Between Pages

These mornings, I am a question I cannot put to words.

Normally I am up before the Sun. The house is still. The windows carry the breath of night. I make tea or coffee. I often don’t remember which until I taste it. Before my day begins, I sit at the table with the book that a thousand eyes have investigated, that is never once the same.

The Bible lies open, its pages are worn like an old coat. I do not rush. I wait with the verses. Sometimes I read just one line and stare at it as though I’ve never seen it before. Sometimes I write that line down in my journal. Other times, I write what I think it meant. But often I just write it plain and let it echo. Echoes are more honest than interpretations.

Birds are flying outside. They argue in the cedar branches. They deliberate on song. A cardinal flashes by like a lit match. A grackle stares like it knows me. The sky is still loose, colorless, waiting for definition. I know that feeling.

This is the time of day when other things are most themselves. The curtains are sheer. The trees are half-asleep. The grass is dewy and waiting to be trampled. Sometimes I notice the ant trail on the window-sill or the way the steam curls up from my mug. These things matter. They might not say much, but they matter.

My journal isn’t neat. Today the ink bleeds. Today the pen skips. My handwriting shifts with my mood. I let it. If God wanted calligraphy, He’d have made me a monk. What I offer instead are fragments. Thoughts written sideways and half-remembered prayers of verses I cannot let go.

Micah 6:8 is one:

“Do justice,
Love mercy,
Walk humbly.”

It sounds simple. It isn’t. Today, I write each word on a separate line. As if to make it a poem is to take the first steps of the day.

Outside, a squirrel performs a tightrope act on the fence. The leaves shift like breath. I glance at the sky again…it has chosen a colour now. I close my Bible. Not because I am done, but because I am full.

Then I sit in the stillness that follows. I let the morning close around me like a parent tucking in a child. I don’t move for a long time. I listen for His voice. I listen to the world remembering itself. I wait, until I feel seen.

And then, when the moment has finished with me, I begin the rest of my day.

But I walk slower.

I notice more.

And sometimes…though not always…I remember to be kind.