It seems that as life moves on for me, I settle into the low spots.
This isn’t a bad thing. What I mean is that as I grow older, I tend to take the path of least resistance, but age brings with it the experience of knowing which paths should be most profitable. Hopefully that experience should settle me into the low spots that bring me peace and comfort.
I grew up in Wisconsin, and one thing they’ll teach you there is how the glaciers affected the topography of the state. They marched across the landscape, scraping and gouging as they went…and when they receded they left behind dips and depressions among the relative flatness. So if you look at a map of northern Wisconsin, you’ll notice a lot of small lakes – water filling in these low spots left by the glaciers.
So here I am, comparing my life to this. Not that I mean my life is relatively flat and boring, with the occasional low spot or swamp. Not at all. I mean that there are aspects of my life that settle into spots where I can be most comfortable.
And as far as my life goes, the biggest, broadest low spot in life is the early morning. I have happily settled into it. And I guess the analogy works well here, because I can’t imagine many things more peaceful than sunrise on a northern Wisconsin lake.
I’m getting so good at it that, while I set an alarm each morning, I seldom need it. My internal clock has me up usually a half-hour before the clock next to my bed (an Echo Dot) goes off (and I love Alexa’s “whisper-mode” – where I can turn off my alarm in a whisper to have her whisper back “5AM alarm cancelled. It usually doesn’t wake up my wife that way.). I have no problems getting out of bed (I can’t remember the last time I thought “just 5 more minutes”), and twice a week or so during the summers I’m usually up, dressed and out on the road by 4:30 to get in 20 miles before 6 (and beat the summer afternoon heat). I’ve seen more than my share of sunrises and they’ve convinced me I’m right to do it even if I don’t feel like it on some days. Then I’ll get to work by 6:30 (even on riding days I’m there by 7), where I usually knock out what most people would take a day to do within the first three hours there (remember the old Army commercial – “we do more before 9 AM than most people do all day”?).
On weekends, I sleep in – which means giving myself permission to stay in bed until 6 (although I seldom do). On these days I’ll make a cup of coffee, cook something for breakfast, settle down to do some reading, and maybe even sit down and write a bit…like now.
I just can’t fathom people that would stay in bed any later than sunrise (no matter what time of year), and I’m equally incredulous that anyone would want to stay up much longer than after the sun goes down. Why wander about where all the air is filled with the noise and pollution of an entire day?
Now before you think I’m some kind of old fogey telling you kids to keep it down so I can sleep, know that I’ve been there. It’s not like I’ve been this old and cranky my whole life. There was a time when I’d finish a day’s work and head out to see the night. I could be just as wild and stay up just as late as the best of them. But I tell you now, looking back on it, it isn’t worth it. There’s a verse in the Bible that reminds me of this every time I read it – “What benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of?” (Romans 6:21). Even if you don’t believe the Bible, there’s wisdom in that. You can believe me instead: very little can be gained from wearing yourself out in late nights and little sleep.
Korea is known as the “Land of the Morning Calm.” I’ve seen that morning in some piece of 5 decades now. I can tell you that it’s not what it used to be. In the 80’s I’d come out of work on the top of Hill 170 at 6 AM after a mid-shift and I could feel the silence. I still remember those mornings as some of the most beautiful I’d ever witnessed.
Nowadays, Korea has a lot more going on. In the 80’s, there was very little private car ownership. Highways in the area were two lanes. The metro only came as far south as Suwon and the line was down to only two tracks when it passed through Songtan. And the town wasn’t much either. The other side of those tracks was beyond the reach of most people that had anything to do with the base. And not far beyond that was all country and rice paddies.
Today, you have a city easily more than triple the size in area and population, along with factories, highways, a bullet train, the metro, two six-lane expressways, and the world’s largest semiconductor factory, all within a 5 km radius of the base.
And yet at 6 AM, it still manages to be incredibly peaceful. Those morning sunrises are no less gorgeous today than they were decades ago, and even over the light sounds of early morning activity on the area’s roads, there is a quietness that still reminds me of the morning calm I used to experience.
Even better though, you don’t have to be in Korea to experience the virtues of an early morning. I can say quite confidently you’ll not find a place where the din of the day is a better option than the peace of its morning.
And these days, don’t you think we’d all be better off with that?