This morning I left my house in the pre-dawn stillness of the Blue Ridge foothills.  A rooster announced the coming dawn at a house nearby.  My dogs sniffed around my hands, waking and shaking themselves for the long day’s dog-business; eating, sleeping, fighting, running through the woods.

Looking up from our wooden, covered porch, the stars took my breath away.  You can see the arching span of the Milky-Way from our hilltop.  The light from all the stars was almost palpable, and made the sliver moon seem dim in contrast.

Behind me, my wife and children slept in the house, where the stars beat silently on the metal roof, and where the cool air kept all of them quietly dreaming beneath heavy blankets.

Before me lay a day of practicing medicine in an emergency room.  Before me waited the patients who are, in many real ways, as complex and incredible as stars.  The organization, structure and function of our bodies no less remarkable than burning hydrogen and helium.  The content of our minds, the souls that enliven us, all no less numinous than the spanning Milky-Way itself.

Blessed man that I am!  For my day to begin beside my wife in the warm blankets, in the house where the children sleep, in the yard where the dogs make their rounds, beneath the stars that visit my eyes and mind from billions of miles of space; for my day to involve meeting, touching, caring for, repairing beings made in the image of God, and as brilliant as the heavenly bodies themselves.

Blessed more than I ever imagined I could be.

Have a wonderful day, and know that even in the day, starlight pours down upon you.

 

Edwin

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