photo uploaded by Harold Laudeus

“Today I arise and thank you Father for calling me from the tomb of sleep yet again to live in the ever-increasing light of resurrection.”

There came a time in my life when I ran out of prayer. I had used up all my words. I wanted to cry out to God, but the words stuck. Sounds fell from my mouth like stones dropping into a dry well.

I’m sure this sounds a bit crazy, but as I tried to pray there were no words. Sometimes cries, moans, or wordless songs ascended from my lips.

In this desert of prayer, I picked up an Christian prayer book and began reading morning prayers aloud each day. In the weeks, months and even years ahead, ancient words rooted in Scripture shaped my cries before God. Basil the Great, Macarius, Ephraim and other Christians from the early centuries of faith taught me to pray again.

In their simple morning prayers to God, I noticed a pattern. Many of their morning prayers began with the phrase “Arising from sleep.” They consistently connected the idea of resurrection to arising from sleep. Sleep seems to mean both the night of sleep, the sleep of sin that kept me blind to God, and even the sleep of this life in light of eternity.

Every morning, these ancient Christians reminded me that I am waking in light of eternity. So every morning is like a day of resurrection, a day of celebration, a day to join the ever worshipping choirs of angels proclaiming the glory of God. In this rhythm of prayer, I began to realize that I am truly waking from glory to glory.

The Father calls us forth into life and into life and into life. The wonder His love continually opens before us in people and places where we dwell. Each new day really is a new day, really is the day of salvation. Each day we awake in light of the Day of the Lord.

In the simplicity of these “rising prayers” I began to notice the hand of the Father who had been calling, waking, leading me into life long before I had any sense of His love, His faithfulness, His ever watchful Spirit leading me forward into the fullness of His Risen Son.

Now I as look back over the last few years, I am aware of encounters, events, and experiences that seem like conversion experiences, like resurrections. The morning I watched the sun rise over the dark water, I experienced the start of a new day, and a New Day.

The stories and songs of the early Celtic Christians awoke me to the simplicity of uplifted hands in ceaseless prays. Their world centered in the bread and cup of communion Jesus serves His disciples. And in this simple meal, we discover that all of life is rooted in thanksgiving. So I join them in realizing that the place where I am standing is holy, yet I also join them in longing for the place of my resurrection.

After taking a year of creative thinking classes in graduate school, I realized something happened. During the weeks and months of the previous year, I had been changed. I woke up. I stepped into a freedom and joy that felt like entering childhood all over again. I had been converted into a child and was prepared to enter the kingdom of God.

Reading G.K. Chesterton’s biography of Thomas Aquinas, I felt the ground shake beneath my feet. Not because it was dissipating but because it seemed like for the first time in my life, I was walking on real ground, in a real world that the Father had created in love for His children. What could I do? Only fall to my knees in praise.

Each day I arise, I arise to new wonder. I arise to a new world of real people and real things. This real world is not an empty space, but all things have been created in and through the Word of God, and all things are reconciled through the Word

In this real world of real trees and real flowers and real beauty, I’ve experienced real suffering. At times, the suffering felt like death. But in the dying, I have encountered the voice of the God who raises the dead. He creates and sustains all things through His Word, Jesus Christ.

In Christ, I’ve encountered a love that passes my reason or my capacity to explain or defend. I simply rest in the faithful love of a God I cannot grasp, but who grasps me, shapes me, breathes into me, and calls me forth into life.

On this day of thanks, I lift up a voice of rejoicing, joining the prayers of my brothers and sisters across time, who’ve encountered the loving Father in the Son by the power of His Spirit poured out on us.

In the words of Basil the Great,
“As I rise from sleep I thank Thee, O Holy Trinity, for through Thy great goodness and patience Thou wast not angered with me, an idler and sinner, nor hast Thou destroyed me in my sins, but hast shown Thy usual love for men, and when I was prostrate in despair, Thou hast raised me to keep the morning watch and glorify Thy power. And now enlighten my mind’s eye and open my mouth to study Thy words and understand Thy commandments and do Thy will and sing to Thee in heartfelt adoration and praise Thy Most Holy Name of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, now and ever, and to the ages of ages. Amen.
O come let us worship God our King. 
O come let us worship and fall down before Christ our King and our God. 
O come let us worship and fall down before Christ Himself, our King and our God.”

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