Rhapsody

I had surgery over two weeks ago. The doctor said everything went well, and, after a week or two of consideration, I think things went well too. 

I went jogging by moonlight this morning, and I am pretty sure everything stayed put. My liver is still tucked up nicely, there on the right, my bladder seems to have kept its opinion to itself, and my lungs...hate me.

So! Success. 

Now the sun is just beginning to rise. The trees are black against a lightening gradient of blue. The crickets are droning, rattling, chirping, and eeping in frantic, bored constancy. A rooster has been crowing reluctantly for about an hour. You get the feeling that some hen keeps shushing him. He sneaks one out every five minutes or so rushing a bit at the end.

The thing about sunrise is that it allows you to observe it without seeming to change, but it never really stops. 

Now I can see pink clouds tangled in the tops of the trees. 

I have been reading New Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton. 

I'm just going to pause for a moment of self-congratulation. Oh yes, I am quite smart. You may comment below...I'll wait.

As I was saying...I have been reading New Seeds of Contemplation and...to be perfectly honest, I'm lost. I have no idea what he is talking about. BUT, I have gathered one important thing:

We are much more than the sum of our thoughts.

Apparently, self-examination is about like pausing a sunrise. It is impossible because something bigger is happening. 

There is a deep, true self, as steady and powerful as the coming of a new day. There is a cricket self, frantic, bored, and brittle.

I hear the first bird. She is tentative, just barely willing to believe that day will come again. She has thrown out a chirp, hesitant and rusty. A few thwacks, just to see...

What am I? It is the first question. It is the confusion in the indeterminate blue-grey of the newborn's eyes. It is what drives the toddler to see how high she can climb. It is the frustration of the four year old. In our adulthood, we ask, "Who am I?" but the deeper question is, "What am I?" "What" is my generality? "Who" asks for specifics that a being, unaware of its own generality, can never know. 

The sky has run all to paleness. The birds have decided that forward is the only way to go. The crickets...focusing on crickets could destroy your sanity...relentless, unvaried beating of legs against wings, leave the crickets. 

There is a hawk in a tree. He looks around, and you get the feeling he is truly seeing. The clouds have just flared up into a soft stretch of salmon, swirled and shaped by the wind. And now, while I wasn't looking they have turned gold.

And that's my cue. Day is here, with all of the doing and hearing and seeing that needs to be done.

The hawk has flown. It seems metaphorical.