Morning liturgy

What happens in your first waking moments? What is the first thing that comes to mind or consumes your energies? All of us have our own series of liturgies, patterns that guide our day. And they start when we open our eyes in bed.

Tish Harrison Warren, in Liturgy of the Ordinary, shares "My morning smartphone ritual was brief—no more than five or ten minutes. But I was imprinted. My day was imprinted by technology. And like a mountain lion cub attached to her humans, I'd look for all good things to come from glowing screens... Without realizing it, I had slowly built a habit: a steady resistance to and dread of boredom... We are shaped every day, whether we know it or not, by practices... We don't wake up daily and for a way of being-in-the-world from scratch, and we don't think our way through every action of our day. We move in patterns we have set over time, day by day. These habits and practices shape our loves, our desires, and ultimately who we are and what we worship."

What if instead of scrolling a screen, we recited "This is the day the Lord has made. We will rejoice and be glad in it," from Psalm 118:24. We are marked from our first waking moment by an identity that is given to us by grace: an identity that is deeper and more than any other identity we will don that day...

What do you do with these important, perspective-setting moments?

Grace and peace,

Anita Sorenson
Pastor for Spiritual Formation