Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love,
    that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. – Psalm 90:14

Today’s early morning sky, with the thin winter sunshine creeping up over the horizon to the east and beginning to light the Tar River, reminded me that we are just in the dawning stages of this new year. And not only do we hurtle through space, orbiting the sun at an average speed of around 67,000 miles per hour, but while we are waking the rotation of the planet moves us toward the light at (here in North Carolina) 850 mph.

That’s fast! Can you feel it?

During 2025 we will travel approximately 585 million miles in our journey around the sun; some of us while barely leaving the state or maybe even our own county!

I thought about all of that this morning while standing on the Main Street bridge and remembering last week’s sunrise over the Vistula River in Krakow Poland. And I wondered about the truth that distance – and time too – is only understandable in terms of relationship. Because 67,000 mph is nothing if we are not actually moving toward something. And one hour or one day or even one year means very little absent any measurable change.

Yet every new day – as the light of dawn trickles into our consciousness – presents an invitation into something new and creative and impactful to the world around us.

Yesterday is, in a sense, 1,608,000 miles in the past, and today anything is possible.

I really like that idea; I like the freedom of being in a new place – potentially – every time the sun comes up. I say “potentially” because this dawning, this newness, this reinvention, is a gift that we have to accept and then live into.

It is very much up to us.

As for me, I will take it. Peace and promise – DEREK