I woke up this morning a full thirty minutes before my alarm went off and made the mistake of going back to sleep.  At that point, my body usually does one of two things: I either can’t quite fall back asleep and end up kinda sleeping and kinda waking up OR I fall into the kind of deep sleep that zoologists typically classify as hibernation.  There is no in-between for me.  This morning, it was 30 minutes of not sleeping.  No complaints, though.  The bed was warm and comfy, perfectly shaped to my shape and totally cool with me staying there.  AsleeWAKE.  Awaaaleep.

The blaring alarm snapped me out of twilight and back to reality.  I hopped out of bed (hopped? I think not) and made my way to the kitchen where the coffee pot is always waiting for me.  We have a deal: if I feed it water and coffee grounds, it feeds me coffee.   Moments later I took a mug and made my way outside.  The sun wasn’t up but the birds were.  Today’s birdsong was a playful comparison between the majestic Eagle and our neighborhood Robins.   Here’s what I heard:

Eagles soar and eagles fly,

but Robins make the world go by.  

Eagles – patriotic birds!  

But we’re the ones who eat the worms. 

Disgusting, right?  But true.  And somewhat witty, I suppose.

I looked a few houses down and saw my neighbor carrying a thermos out of his garage.  Stepping into his truck, he turned his headlights on and then started the engine, causing the lights to dim dim dim with the grug grug grug of the starter.  The garage door closed as he backed down the driveway and headed to… where?  I was insatiably curious about where he was going and what he was doing.  Most any job might possibly cause a person to head out the door a few minutes after 5am.  A 5:30 shift seemed reasonable, be it a job at Meijer, Pfizer, or in the classroom.  Most of those jobs would pair nicely with a thermos of coffee.  But how did I know it was coffee?  Perhaps it was mustard.  My daughter, who eats mustard by the spoonful, would find a vessel of French’s Fancy Yellow Mustard a sensible refreshment for any road trip.

It was super dark this morning but the sunrise fixed that.  The sleepy was thick but the coffee fixed that.  The birds felt threatened by the greatness of Eagles, but the song fixed that.

We live in a constant pattern of conflict and resolution, action and reaction.  I sat down to jot down a blog about a good Monday but can’t get past the first few minutes because those minutes are so very complex, layered with meaning and infinitely expanding to more and more thoughts.  Thoughts lead to motion, motion makes stuff go.  Can you imagine how much space the data of one worldwide second would occupy?  Even the superest of supercomputers couldn’t possibly detect, let alone compile, all that info.  And we press on, blissful and joyful because it somehow works.  Even when it doesn’t seem to be working it still works, gears running in such a way that we forget they even exist.  Someone is watching things, keeping the earth rotating and maintaining the oxygen/nitrogen mix ideal for life.  Matter suspends in nothing — earth and all her components float in space in an undeniably perfect and mysterious harmony.  And I wonder how much faith has to be conjured to maintain that it’s coincidence.  I suppose it could be, but I believe it’s all on purpose.  This is deep stuff, and yet I’m still stuck on the thermos full of mustard.

I’m noticing now how considering mystery makes me feel even more alive.  By another coincidence, Jesus the Messiah is the mystery revealed, and the biggest mystery of all is that life is somehow in Him.  Though I don’t fully understand it, at least it explains what.  And who.