FIRST DAY

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

“Good Morning Sunshine.”  Elkan chooses not to respond to his mother’s voice, determined to hold onto the promise offered by the mystery of his “Dream Sleep.”  Dream Sleep is a narrow kingdom between sleep and waking inhabited only by innocence.  It seems pointless to be within reach of an important discovery, only to have fatigue’s recovery ruin the journey by stealing the end of the story.  Elkan loves stories and his favorite story, as far as memory travels, is the one Mother reads every night before he drifts off into sleep.  It is Elkan’s “forever story” about how much his mother loves him.  How she loves his new born little bald head, his first smile that gives Mother peace, and the way his tiny hand around her pinky make life perfect.  The story connects his life to everything in the universe, a vast space with so much possibility, but connected to Elkan in the most intimate way through Mother’s love.  A love that continues through the night and is reaffirmed every morning with Mother’s first words, “Good Morning Sunshine.”

Mother says she wrote the “Forever Story” story while he was a tiny baby.  She says the words were given to her by an angel who wanted to share Daddy’s love from heaven.  She said the angel told her that every night when they finish the book Daddy would reach down from heaven, wrap his arms around them and cradle them through their sleep. Mother told Elkan Daddy was killed by something called an I.E.D. while he was a brave soldier in Afghanistan.  Elkan did not understand all the things Mother told him but he always felt warm and secure when she closed the book covers, smiled, placed a sweet kiss upon his cheek, and touched her face very gently, pointing to the spot where she felt Daddy’s kiss that night.  Elkan always looked closely and tried to guess what part of Mother’s beautiful face she would touch.  Sometimes the cheek, the forehead, the chin, but regardless of whether he guessed correctly, it was like there was someone in the room cradling his small body with comforting arms.

Only innocence overcomes waking by simply remaining very still, eyes wide shut, focusing on the moment and future’s hope.  Elkan lay suspended in fragile yearning, searching and yet aware of a desire to respond to a new day.  Tonight’s Dream Story so precious, so intriguing, so alluring; he has no desire to let go.  No desire to enter the promise of the first day of school, away from home, separated from Mother, yet full of the promise of a great adventure.  An adventure filled with Mother’s promise of new stories, playground equipment, ice cream sandwiches, new friends, and School Teacher who would open up “Doors of Discovery.”

Elkan was excited about the First Day of School and all the things that built up to that moment.  He liked his new clothes, especially the tennis shoes with blue lights.  He liked the backpack with Iron Man in flight and the package of ten different kinds of chips, and the stack of chocolate chip cookies Mother made for his first snack when he returned home from school.  Yet, there was one first thing that filled his soul with a hollow void.  It was a void that covered every thought with an impenetrable fog.  A fog that blanketed every voice, indeed every sound, opening the imagination to unimagined dangers and horrors.  Such chaos filled the world that movement itself seemed to swallow every certain comfort.  It was not all the things he had in common with the "First Day at Schoolers," but that difference from all of them that Elkan hid in his heart.  To even speak its name out loud could unleash unnamed dangers that would bring an end to everything he held dear.  Elkan would be the only child at school without a Daddy.

Elkan lay happily suspended in the dream world, searching the story unfolding before closed eyes.  If he could just get to the end of the story he knew everything would be alright.  Elkan lay motionless following the dream scape, enthralled by a brave little Horny Toad, like the one Mother caught in the back yard.  Although he looked scary, Elkan smiled when Mother turned him over and gently rubbed his belly, just like she did Elkan when his stomach would ache.  And just like Elkan, Horny Toad relaxed, closed his eyes and went to a place where he hoped the rubbing would never end.  Soon Mother took the Horny Toad to the edge of the back yard and let him run into the woods, for she said something was wrong with the world and Horny Toads were disappearing.  When she was a child there were many Horny Toads but something had been taken from the world and their survival was threatened.  

Elkan knew what had been taken, for he had seen the Evil One who stole the one thing necessary for his Dream Horny Toad to survive.  While Horny Toad was asleep in his hospital bassinet a dark shadowy hooded no name demon came in and stole Horny Toad’s blue blanket that kept him warm, and everyone knows lizards can not survive unless they are warmed.  Elkan watched silently as Horny Toad searched to find his blue blanket.  Through the hospital hallways avoiding wheel chairs as the hurried carrying their passengers here and there.  Out the revolving door, across the busy parking lot where cars backed in and out, honking their horns, to hurried to care for the welfare of a tiny toad.  Heroically mounting the curb and disappearing into the shrubs as hungry vultures looked down from their perch looking for their next meal.  

On and on in a never ending journey went the little toad, bravely continuing, always just this side of a panic attack, not knowing where the one thing necessary for continued life had been taken.  Such is the nature of the Dream World and their drama, for there never comes the climax that will bring an end to the fog shroud covering consciousness.  Elkan could only hold on with the same bravery of the little toad hoping the next turn would reveal the stolen treasure. A new chapter in the story slowly reveals itself.  No matter how hard Elkan tries to remain in Dream World there is a wakening that firmly pulls him from his slumber and into a new day.

Slowly, Elkan stretches, scrunches his nose, and opens his eyes to the first sight of this new day, the smile on Mother’s beautiful face and once again she says, “Good Morning Sunshine.” 

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light.  And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.  Genesis 1: 3-5

Soon Elkan was dressed, breakfast was eaten, he was belted in the car, and was standing in front of the door of his new classroom holding Mother’s hand.  They paused, Elkan looked up into Mother’s tender face, relaxed and feeling the butterfly tingles of something important soon.  Mother loosed his hand, held his head between her sweet smelling hands, knelt down low and intentionally placed a familiar kiss upon his cheek saying, “I’ll be back soon.”  As she opened the door and Elkan stepped into the brilliance of focused fluorescent lights he warmed at the embrace of an unseen arm that held him close and upright.

THE PURPOSE AND POWER OF THE BIBLE IS TO ELIMINATE CHAOS 

The wilderness is a very ordered place governed by cause and effect.  Humans are special because, out of all creation, they have been given the greatest discernment, allowing them to unlock wilderness mysteries and exercise limited control of its future.  The one thing that threatens the relationship we have with the universe is Chaos.  Chaos short circuits our body, mind, and soul paralyzing our ability to be.  Chaos sends us down a dead end slough from the river of life, sapping our strength so that we do not have the energy to turn around and find the main channel again.  Sometimes an outside force injects chaos into our life and sometimes it is self inflicted.  Chaos always diminishes and ultimately threatens our life.

The Word of God has the power to destroy Chaos.  It not only provides "The Way" of life but the mystery of Grace has the power to comfort travelers as they search the underbrush for the next phase off life.  

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men.  And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.  John 1: 1-5