Sunrise

I was laying in the big field, arms wide open, trying to get some sun into my skin and just listening to the tall trees clank together in the background while feeling a gentle wind blow around me in the open space. As I was laying there, I could picture myself anywhere in the world, anywhere that I have layed out in the sun like this. My mind wandered to Florida, California, Mexico, my own back yard. I got this overwhelming sense of how much God is like the sun. This is the same sun that shines on me and everyone in the whole world. We all get what we need from it. This feeling was only strengthened the next morning. I woke up a little before 6am to run to a spot that gives a perfect view of the valley and the mountains and all the rolling green beauty. I have been dying to do this since I got here, so I woke up before my alarm clock went off, which just sets my off on the right foot! My window showed my darkness with a tinge of orange in the distance, so I hurriedly went down the creaking wooden steps and put on my shoes and was out the door. This is an amazing time to run because there isn’t anybody out yet, the roosters are all growing, and there is a loud chorus of birds to sing be along. When I got to the spot a huge smile crept over my face as I found the perfect shaped rock to sit on to witness God’s creation in action. If I would of stepped forward a few feet I would have fallen down into the vast valley below-it is so great to be in a place where there aren’t railing and other man made crap in the way. Slowly I watched a deep blazing orange gradually appeared over the mountain, soon the top of the sun began to appear and slowly shed light over the green rolling hills below. The colors of this magnificent thought of God to light his world and put it into motion reflected off my wet eyelashes as I tried to comprehend what was happening. Gradually the sun was a brilliant perfect circle, so brilliant I could barely look at it with both of my eyes open. It was such a Holy Moment-there were no words for me to even utter to my Maker. I could only sit and enjoy it. God- I thought again-we all, we as in the whole creation, rely on this one thing. No one could survive without it. It was such a lofty thought, one I could barely conceive of. It just makes me realize more than I already am of how much we are all really the same; there really is only one race. We all do human things and need human things, and being here as never showed me that more. Highschool boys are highschool boys whether in a wealthy suburban school in Minnesota eating off fancy lunch trays or in a Kenyan boarding school arising at 5 am to get their own water to get ready for the day. Children in the US, in Korea, in Africa, all want to be told they are good and they are smart and worth something. Women want to look beautiful-if it is me trying to get tan, my housemate using cream to make her Korean complexion more snowy white than it already is, or an African getting browns and golds braided into her dark hair-we are all the same somehow. That day I was laying in the field, a song came to mind that I love and really just rang true to the moment and the next few days. It is by Sara Groves, and the words are below:

You are the Sun, shining down on everyone. Light of the world, giving light to everything I see. Beauty so brilliant, I can hardly take it in… and everywhere You are is warmth and light. And I am the moon with no light of my own, still You have made me to shine, and as I glow in this cold dark night, I know I can’t be a light unless I turn my face to You. Shine on me, with your light, Without you I’m a cold dark stone. Shine on me, I have no light of my own. You are the Sun you are the Sun, You are the Sun, and I am the moon…You have made me to shine. I’ll never be a light unless I turn my face to you. I cannot be a light unless I turn myself to You.