My mother was always the first one up. The light above the stove, turned on after the dishes were done the night before, was all the light she needed. She opened the draperies to the approaching dawn. She opened the kitchen door and let the dog out to bark and chase the night away. Once the coffee was started, she would go out her front door, walk to the end of a neighbor’s driveway, and pick up The Washington Post that the “paperboy” had left there. She would deliver the paper to the neighbor’s front porch. She did this for each of her neighbors before bringing in the paper from the end of our driveway.  She took a cup of coffee to my father in a large china mug with a Norman Rockwell painting on it. This was a not-so-private joke between them.  The painting was called “For a Good Boy.” My father drank his first cup of coffee and read from a book of meditations before he got out of bed.  On the kitchen counter, next to the coffee, she put out good bakery bread for toast with butter, jams, and cheese..  There was also cereal and milk on the counter– and always a huge bowl of fresh fruit– something for everyone. This was her morning ritual. 

My baby boy woke up laughing. He learned to stand in his crib early and looked toward the door with such happy and eager anticipation.  It was early. Too early. Way too early.  Sleep deprived, I learned to crawl on my stomach past his door so he couldn’t see me, and then I’d tiptoe down the steps where coffee, set to a timer, waited. It only took a sip or two, and then I could match his eagerness.  I knew that if I was lucky enough to have a baby who was happy to see me, he deserved a mom who was that happy to see him.  I sleepily loved our mornings together.  This was our morning ritual. 

My father-in-law, legally blind in his nineties, set a coffee pot to a timer for my mother-in-law.  It was set in their bedroom. She woke to the smell of coffee, poured herself a cup, and situated herself in a rocking chair that faced the dawn outside her bedroom window.  She read from a book of meditations and prayed for her family and the world.  When I commented to my father-in-law how generous it was for him to make the coffee every night when he didn’t even drink it, he smiled with humor and sly wisdom.  “We all benefit from Elizabeth’s prayers.”  This was their ritual. 

We wake up with variegated overlays of mood that color our days.  Some of us wake with groggy hangovers from events and encounters from the day before–tinged with worry.  Or we might wake up entrenched and immobilized by what lies before us.  We might wake up peering through a cloud of grief that occludes our vision for possibility.   Or we wake up as if chased by tigers breaking through Gaugin-like nightscapes, our thoughts speeding to catch up to our racing hearts.  And yes, there are those of us lucky enough to wake with a song in our hearts– ready to hurdle over any morning routine that stands between us and the day we are ready to slay. We charge forth…unprotected, unanchored, and without reflection or intention.

I have friends who start their day with a walk or a run– who watch the moon fade in the breaking day. One friend pauses at the same spot every day and offers prayer. 

Our awareness of who we are in the early morning moments is part of how we choose to show up in the day ahead.  Embracing the morning quiet (and allowing it to embrace us)  is an act of hope and healing–even when that quiet is calibrated to the busy sounds of family.  

My morning involves prayer, meditation, and journaling (and yes, coffee) in the early predawn hours.  This has been true for years, but I remember when it was an aspirational idea that moved along a continuum of “should do it,” “want to do it,” and “will do it.”  I was dogmatic about it in anticipation of actually doing it.   And now that it is such a treasured practice in my life, I am far less dogmatic about it.  For me, breath and prayer are paths to repair in a world that needs our help. When I address the chaos within or around me, I am doing my part not to add chaos to the world.  Even as I embrace solitude, I embrace that we are not alone. Not any of us. 

I don’t know what the morning quiet should look like for anyone else. I know this: routine orders time and, with intention, becomes ritual.  Ritual deepens beauty and meaning as we mark the seasons, celebrations, and transitions of our lives. It’s true in the night-to-morning transition of a new day and it’s true in the light that threads its way through the darkening days of December.

Ritual becomes both invitation and response as I choose ‘yes’ as my first word of the day. 

And on this first Sunday in Advent, I choose yes to seeking the light in these short days of December.