Dear God, onpassing, ongiving, forward-looking, spreading love – let this day be a diamond that I polish through gifts to others. Let it be a river.

You have released me from despair and dissolution and granted me this day.

Let your gifts not stop with me. Let me be no stagnant pond.

(Letter #1,632)

Dear God, early will I seek you. Before the others stir, before the day creatures roam, before awareness of my needs crushes me. The dawn announces a full day of your sunshine, and I will have already sought you.

Why must I surrender so early to your will, dear Lord? It is my way of devotion. Let my duties to you come before all else today.

The sun will already be shining upon my shoulders as I go out from here. Let me walk erect under your gaze.

(Letter #1,631)

Dear God, I cannot recall what troubled me just a few days ago. Today’s worries occlude it. And tomorrow will dispel today’s.

Lord, let me release these cares, a sacrifice to you. While they are with me, they loom so large. Phantoms.

Open my eyes to the ease you have granted me, if only I will grasp it. You have placed gifts here before me. Let me gather them up.

Shine upon me, sunshine, and burn away the mist.

(Letter #1,630)

Dear God, every moment is the same, always now, with its own yesterday and tomorrow – and yet I approach one differently then another. What changes is what I bring into each. The load I carry one day is heavier than that of another.

Today, Lord, my dreary burden weighs. Let me find you nonetheless in this gray dawn. You are hiding behind the bushes I will later trim, underneath the carpet I am to sweep.

Let me see you here with me, let my heart quicken.

(Letter #1,629)