Getting Up Early

I’m not a “get up early person” unless it involves the prospect of a little white ball or the start of a vacation. No, usually waking up about 7, I love to keep hitting the snooze button and wade in and out of sleep for another hour or so. This is true especially with the years adding up!

But lately our yellow Labrador Retriever will have none of it. He sleeps hard and wakes up fast. No snooze button in the morning’s early on. It’s usually around 445 or 5 if I’m lucky, and here’s how it goes. I’m a side sleeper. If I’m on my right hip, facing the bed’s middle, I get a sudden paw scrape on my back and shoulder. If I’m on my left hip, facing outward, the scrape gives way to a face lick or even worse when bear find my ear canal before I can protect myself! I roll away from him, as if to say no, and within a minute he is standing at the door letting out a roaring bark. UUGH!

“Rise and Shine!” he says clear as day. Who says dogs can’t talk? So down we go for food and back yard relief. Mumbling my disapproval and rubbing my eyes, I am greeted by nature’s wonder. The birds sing louder it seems, or maybe it’s just that the busy world isn’t on the move quite yet. Rabbits and squirrels and chipmunks scatter, already fast into their day’s work. I face the sun most days these days rising early, regally, and that unique early morning color starts its show. before long, with a steaming cup of coffee in my hand, my spirit is fully awake and alive, and I’m grateful to be up. (Just to clarify, I am NOT grateful at the start of this process, but I am later on!)

I find I need no text or hymn or prayer to worship the One who is my Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. My heart and mind, my spirit is already full for the gift of another day, and the green beauty, and holy time to sit still and reflect on God’s presence and promises.

Don’t get me wrong, I seriously hope this trend will not continue into fall and winter’s diminishing light and cold. I hope Bear will sleep longer because of the darkness. But for now, it’s ok, it’s even a good blessing — that is, once I’m up.

Love from here!

Peter Hawkinson

Getting Up Early

I’m not a “get up early person” unless it involves the prospect of a little white ball or the start of a vacation. No, usually waking up about 7, I love to keep hitting the snooze button and wade in and out of sleep for another hour or so. This is true especially with the years adding up!

But lately our yellow Labrador Retriever will have none of it. He sleeps hard and wakes up fast. No snooze button in the morning’s early on. It’s usually around 445 or 5 if I’m lucky, and here’s how it goes. I’m a side sleeper. If I’m on my right hip, facing the bed’s middle, I get a sudden paw scrape on my back and shoulder. If I’m on my left hip, facing outward, the scrape gives way to a face lick or even worse when bear find my ear canal before I can protect myself! I roll away from him, as if to say no, and within a minute he is standing at the door letting out a roaring bark. UUGH!

“Rise and Shine!” he says clear as day. Who says dogs can’t talk? So down we go for food and back yard relief. Mumbling my disapproval and rubbing my eyes, I am greeted by nature’s wonder. The birds sing louder it seems, or maybe it’s just that the busy world isn’t on the move quite yet. Rabbits and squirrels and chipmunks scatter, already fast into their day’s work. I face the sun most days these days rising early, regally, and that unique early morning color starts its show. before long, with a steaming cup of coffee in my hand, my spirit is fully awake and alive, and I’m grateful to be up. (Just to clarify, I am NOT grateful at the start of this process, but I am later on!)

I find I need no text or hymn or prayer to worship the One who is my Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer. My heart and mind, my spirit is already full for the gift of another day, and the green beauty, and holy time to sit still and reflect on God’s presence and promises.

Don’t get me wrong, I seriously hope this trend will not continue into fall and winter’s diminishing light and cold. I hope Bear will sleep longer because of the darkness. But for now, it’s ok, it’s even a good blessing — that is, once I’m up.

Love from here!

Peter Hawkinson

On Resentment

(Guest blogger is Sam Paravonian. Thank you Sam!)

Occasionally on Saturday mornings my father would take my brother (about a year and a half younger than me) and me for little over a mile walk to visit a shirttail relative of his from the old country. The man and his family lived in a two story building on Belvidere Street near Jackson Street. The family lived on the upper floor and owned and operated a neighborhood “convenience store.” Even though the morning business was light but steady, we always had opportunity to chat a while and even have some candy and/or gum which my brother and I thoroughly enjoyed.

I thought the contact between two long time relatives would be more overtly joyous, friendly and warm with more loud laughter and back-slapping rather than the more sedate, polite, and outwardly civil behavior which I observed. Furthermore, the mother never came down to the store to see us, and even more disappointing to me, she would not allow their son who was my age to come down to play with me and my brother. What’s going on here? I wondered.

Well! I learned the answer much later; I fact about 30-35 years ago when my wife and I drove to New Jersey to visit my sister Adrien (thirteen years older than me) and her family. While talking about our good old days and experiences in Waukegan I just mentioned that I never figured out the coolness and distance among our family and my father’s shirttail relatives. My sister was very surprised that I never knew and said, “Let me tell you.”

Shortly after my parents’ marriage and my mother came to Waukegan and became settled, she and my father invited his relative and wife to have lunch or some meal them in their home. After conversations and whatever, my mother invited them to the dining room. When my father’s shirttail relative saw the table all set, he said, “Mrs. Paravonian sets a fine table!” His wife then resentfully and bitterly said “All these years and every day I prepare a table for you and you never say that to me!” After that she stayed away and the relationship cooled.

I think about the missed fun times and joyful experiences our families could have shared but have missed over the years.

Good advice from apostle Paul: “Get rid of all bitterness…..” Ephesians 4:31

Sam Paravonian