One of the greatest inspirational songs I’ve ever heard was one that WETA-FM in Washington, DC played every morning at 6:00 am for many years. I’m not sure if they still do, but in those early training school days of my retail career, I was up in suit-and-tie and on my way to class with the other trainees at 8am, then meetings at 9, and having my little section of the giant store open at 10. When I found the song playing each day at that time, I set my radio alarm so it was the first thing I heard every day. Not realizing it at the time, it was like a morning prayer, or reading the daily office before starting the day. All done in less than four minutes.
No loud alarms, no jumping out of bed, no choking down scalding coffee as I ran out the door. I just got up and started my new day.
It followed me from training days, to crawling up through drudge (and some grudge) positions. It followed me to the greatest day job I ever had involving an entire store, in which I had to make large-stroke decisions on the merchandising direction and look of the entire store, not just departments. Then it grew on to doing the same with multiple stores all across the country. Every step along the way – the usual expected office stress aside – it all begin simply with my beginning each sunrise as A New Day.
The career continued forward from there, and I stayed with the song for as long as I was able to work that with my early morning schedule. Retail hours get crazy some times and you’re doing double shifts or closing late, and it’s not so easy to get up every day at 6am like FM radio station clockwork.
When we moved to (back to) North Carolina to try my hand at a start-up company, we had left that regularity, and in a few years’ time I’d stumbled upon this contemplative practice that I write about so much here. It became that same continuity of spirit and serenity. I had to get up a lot earlier to get things done: 5 am each day so I could read through the liturgical readings for the day from the Lectionary (that would be Old Testament, Psalm, New Testament, and Gospel readings for the day.) Then 20 minutes for a timed “sit” – a time of silent prayer in the darkness of the early hours, in that quiet still-sleeping house, usually with the greyhound napping at my feet. The perfect prayer partner: he understood that the three chimes leading us into prayer was the beginning of this time of great silence, and the three chimes at the end was when he opened his eyes, looked up at me, and knew that the day was afoot, tail gently thumping the carpet!
After this meditation, for the first 2-3 years I wrote a homily each day: not so much sermonizing, as it was a sort of “note-to-self” back to me on what I had just read, and what(ever) had come out of that time of contemplation. I still go back and read those manuscripts and wonder at the growth and closeness to my God that I grew into more deeply on the pages.
It all began with a song.
“You Are The New Day” sung by The King’s Singers became an “old chestnut” of the group, and was seen quite often on PBS television stations as their sign-on/sign-off videos back in the days when television stations did not run 24 hours a day, and had to sign off at midnight. Often with some rendition of the National Anthem. Then they signed on again at some wee hour of the morning, and some used “You Are The New Day” for that.
A few years ago, the group performed a once-off variation in concert with a Christmas theme version of the lyrics, written by group member Philip Lawson. I first heard it live when they sang it during an interview on one of the Satellite radio stations, speaking with my friend Robert Aubry Davis. Like the audiences who heard it in concert, I fell in love immediately, and was glad to hear that they finally recorded the Christmas version because of the intense international popularity of this simple song.
The performance below is not by the Singers themselves, but done by a larger choral group, The Cambridge Singers, directed by John Rutter. With only the slightest variation to the original text, Lawson’s verses transform this most gentle love song into a Nativity cradle song for the rest of us – for the ones looking on.
Listening to the Christmas version, I’m reminded that – just as with my alarm clock going off to this sweet melody all those years at 6 am – what we are witnessing at the Nativity is indeed a New Day. And just as with the radio-alarm going off each morning – it is up to us to remember what this day represents, and to find our own ways to spread it forward in gentle peace and love.
On this Christmas, may we each find our own New Day.
Keep the faith!
- Amen
Born on a New Day
performed by The Cambridge Singers and The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra
directed by John Rutter
Christmas lyric variation by Philip Lawson
You are the new day.
Meekness, love, humility,
Come down to us this day:
Christ, your birth has proved to me
You are the new day.
Quiet in a stall you lie,
Angels watching in the sky
Whisper to you from on high:
‘You are the new day.’
When our life is darkest night,
Hope has burned away,
Love, your ray of guiding light,
Show us the new day.
Love of all things great and small,
Leaving none, embracing all,
Fold around me where I fall,
Bring in the new day.
This new day will be a turning point For every one,
If we let the Christ-child in, And reach for the new day.
Christ the Way, the Truth, the Life,
Healing sadness, ending strife,
You we welcome, Lord of Life.
Born on a new day,
You are the new day.
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To see a popular PBS Television spot featuring the original King’s Singers version, please click on this link: You Are The New Day
You Are The New Day
Performed by The Kings’ Singers
Lyrics by John David
You are the new day.
I will love you more than me
and more than yesterday
If you can but prove to me
you are the new day
Send the sun in time for dawn
Let the birds all hail the morning
Love of life will urge me say
you are the new day
When I lay me down at night knowing we must pay
Thoughts occur that this night might stay yesterday
Thoughts that we as humans small
could slow worlds and end it all
lie around me where they fall
before the new day
One more day when time is running out for everyone
Like a breath I knew would come I reach for the new day
Hope is my philosophy
Just needs days in which to be
Love of life means hope for me
borne on a new day
You are the new day
Tags: advent, Christmas, contemplative prayer, Inspiration, Meditation, Peace, Video
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