Morning Meditation

My study window overlooks a ravine in my backyard with some naked trees standing tall like quiet sentinels watching over the house. In summer one can barely see the hospital parking lot for all of the vegetation, but today the lot with its cars and bundled employees walking hurriedly toward the rear entrance are clearly visible. The sun brings out the reddish brick of the building and the contrast of shadow and morning sunlight accentuates the edges. It’s almost like looking out from a tree house because my window is just below eyelevel with the top of the tree closest to the house where the woodpeckers have carved big holes in the dead top. Someday it may fall on the house, but I am reluctant to have it cut because my redheaded friends would lose their home and the rest of the tree still lives. As I look out the window, I am happy and content. A Bible verse from my childhood comes to my mind, “This is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

At the right side of the window is a picture painted by a member of our congregation. In the upper right corner is a small innocent looking child, and in the bottom left is the half face of an adult. The colors the artist used are bright green, gold and black. The adult side of the painting is dark except for some bright gold at the top; the green is on the child’s side. There is a flaming chalice below the child that unites the figures in the picture with a black circle that extends from its base and forms the central focal point of the picture, bringing the child and adult together.

So, why am I writing this? Because a few days ago I asked a student who told me she was bored at school, “What excites you makes you feel alive?” She told me that there was nothing. Maybe I am just getting too old and remembering the good old days as better than they were, but it seems to me that our society is suffering from an epidemic of depression that is especially disconcerting when it seems to be increasing in our young people. As I look at the picture, I wonder if the pressure we are placing on our children to grow up quickly is robbing them of their connection with their inner child full of wonder and excitement. I look at the chalice that forms the center of the picture. How many young people are missing a spiritual center that brings meaning to their lives and gives them light in the dark times?