A Resurrection Every Morning

Every single morning I contemplate the resurrection.  It's hard not to when the wake up song you sing to your children is "The Day Dawn is Breaking."  When I come into their rooms, they are sleeping soundly and deeply.  Dead to the world.  Not moving.  Then I begin singing that first verse.  Sometimes they will start stirring just hearing me sing.  But usually I have to touch them to really begin to wake them up.  So I stroke their faces, do a lot of back rubs, squeeze their calves, rub a tummy, whatever--depends on which body part presents itself to me.

So there I am, symbolically bringing these little people back to life at the same time I'm singing a song about resurrection and the millenium.  I also notice how similar those first-waking movements are to newborns and even movements that I felt these people make when their habitat was my belly.  When I first start singing, there may be a twitch.  Then as I continue singing and rub a back, the legs give a little stretch, followed by the arms.  But that doesn't necessarily mean they are awake yet.  As often as not they will do those movements and fall right back asleep.

So not only am I thinking of the resurrection but I wonder if waking up and the resurrection are similar to when our spirits inhabited our bodies for the first time.  I used to think that the spirit didn't enter the body until birth.  But lately I've been wondering if those little jabs and kicks are a momentary consciousness.  Maybe those spirits are there 100% of the time, or maybe it's just here and there a little bit.  I wonder if when those spirits are there in that little body that has not yet been born, have they passed through the veil already or not yet?

And even though I have been doing this routine for more than a decade now, it has never been routine enough for me to be able to sing the song and touch my children without thinking about these things.