Watch more sunrises

There is a comforting certainty to dawn.  It is inevitable, even if just hours before it's arrival seemed hopelessly in doubt.  It welcomes each of our days with the most powerful force we can experience in our physical world.  Assuming that astronomists and molecular physicists are onto something, the energy of our sun creates and created most of the available energy on our planet - even the wind and fossil fuels originate from our sun..   Meanwhile, with a little help from it's ancestral cosmic forces, it's seemingly chaotic and incessant nuclear explosions built complex molecules from a virtual void of subatomic soup.  From an astronomical supply of positive and negative energy, came, quite literally, everything that matters in our world.  From void and darkness, came meaning and light.

Furthermore, as glorious and powerful as a sunrise is,  it is only a glimpse into the vast forces out there.  And even our experience of the sun and the universal powers beneath it are limited by the capacity of human sensation,  including all of our self-important scientific discoveries and observational instruments.  The explanations for all "that is" above are tantalizingly incomplete.    Science itself admits this, when it is behaving itself.

So what does this all mean?  Well, we can start by watching more sunrises.  Just because we're not consciously experiencing or intellectually understanding all of the Power around us, doesn't mean it's not open to us.  We just need to open to it.

We live in a virtual world.  Every day, more hugs are replaced by facebook "pokes" and little red stars on our Blackberries or (insert relevant icon)'s on our iPhones.  Dinner parties and staff meetings give way to blog chats and conference calls.  Walks in the woods are permanently rescheduled by increasing demands from our technology or organized activities for the kids.  The times we could spend just being, with ourselves, with Spirit, or with our loved ones, are elbowed out of our lives. 

But while that little "ding" on our computer that tells us we have mail gives us a little jolt of anticipation, think about how far from it's energetic source it had to come to get here.  Billions of years ago, forces of this universe made our beloved Sun and with it co-created matter on Earth.  These forces breathed life into that void with such impossible complexity that human ingenuity become possible.  Humans fashioned language ordered society, invented computers, and clumsily harnessed these creations to the forces of God.  Then, a few seconds ago, one of those humans typed a message into a computer and sent it to you through binary code.  The result?  A series of letters appeared on your email telling you that some political candidate is unworthy to be re-elected, or that some nutritional supplement will make you younger, or thinner, or more virile, or that your friends are trying to connect with you through impossible distances of space and time.

The reason that sunrises are so powerful is that they demand a space in which we pause, quiet all of these contrived forces, and witness our closest physical example of the vast power of this Universe.  They are still strong enough, if we allow ourselves to experience them, to pull us into that sacred space that, at least for a moment, reconnects us with God.  A even that miraculous sunrise is just a tiny peephole into the Divine..

So the next time you are in some dark void of life, where you are seeking some elusive hope or meaning, witness a sunrise and all it's promises.  Close your eyes, and open up to the power that is beneath, and within, all things -  including you.  Especially you.  Then open them again and remember how many miracles greet us with each new day - how many miracles lie dormant inside of you, waiting for their own dawn.