Sometimes In The Morning

Do you remember The Lettermen and Ed Ames singing “Sometimes in the Morning?”  The younger generation may be more familiar with the song “Sometimes in the Morning, “ written by Jonathan Edwards.  Some women may be familiar with the words “Sometimes in the Morning” as the name of a perfume by Hubert De Montandon.  All of that to say: Sometimes in the morning, I spend a half-hour or so browsing through my Notebooks of Note, where I have stored the words of others, words that spoke to me at some time or another and I decided to save.

Sometimes in the morning, when the shadows are deep

I sit with those who are no more and listen to them speak.

Words which have lifted me and from which I’ve reaped

Greater understanding than I could on my own.

For sometimes, in the morning, a phrase is heard, 

That echoes through the haze of time that I am not alone,

And my cup runneth over; my soul is stirred.

I’m not a poet.  I’m simply trying to share with you the uplift, the value and worth of the words of others, and how they fill my cup, stir my soul, and wreak either havoc or give peace to my mind.  Sometimes in the morning I read words like these:

“The first place to look for Christ, is in Hell.”  (William Stringfellow). Now I can ponder that phrase all day long. 

“Be not angry that you cannot make others as you wish them to be, since you cannot make yourself as you wish to be.”  (A’Kempis, The Imitation of Christ). 

“God is not One who is discussed or argued about, but One who is encountered.”  (D. Elton Trueblood)

“God often visits us, but most of the time we are not at home.” (Author unknown)

“Sometimes at that moment (of despair) a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying:  ‘You are accepted.  You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you….” (Paul Tillich, The Shaking of the Foundations)

Sometimes in the morning these words inspire.  Sometimes in the morning these words frustrate.  Sometimes in the morning these words irk my soul.  Sometimes in the morning these words fill me with hope.  But always in the morning these words help me realize that my cup runneth over, because such words still stir my soul and churn my mind.