Early Morning Reveille

     When I went to camp as a child, we were awakened each morning by a scratchy record playing "Reveille," a trumpet call used to awaken military personnel at sunrise. The name comes from "réveillé", the French word for "wake up."  The sound of this familiar melody playing over the camp PA system was a signal for campers to rise and begin the new day; it was a morning wake up call.

     Mornings are best savored slowly for me now, which doesn't always happen.  I don't drink coffee, but I do have a morning routine that brings guidance, comfort, and peace.  So this is how I love to start my day....

      I begin with the Bible passage for the day in my One Year Chronological Bible (NIV).  I'm reading through the Bible this way for the second year, and I truly love it.  The entire Bible is divided into daily readings in the order the events actually occurred.  This arrangement has been very enlightening and has taught me so much. 

     There are three devotionals I like to use, if there's time. 

      Jesus Calling by Sarah Young is an excellent devotional book which I began reading in 2011.  It is written as if Jesus were speaking to you, and I often feel the day's entry is just for me.  The devotions are short but powerful.  The Bible verses included are always thought provoking.  Looking up the Scriptures has become a sort of spiritual treasure hunt for me after I finish reading the devotional - I'm excited read the verses and see which will "speak" to me each day.  This tiny little book has become widely popular, with sales exceeding 2.5 million.

     The Upper Room Daily Devotional is another important part of my morning.  I have been reading this little devotion daily for many years, and it is always insightful and relevant.  There is a Bible reading, short devotion, prayer, and thought for the day.  I'm often amazed at how devotions written by people from all over the world can speak to me personally as if written just for me.

    The third devotional book I use if possible is Choosing Joy: A 52-Week Devotional for Discovering True Happiness by Angela Thomas.  This book focuses each week on a different aspect of intentionally choosing joy in our daily lives and offers practical help for Christians.  I just began this book in 2012 but really like it.

    The most important part of my morning reveille is my prayer time.  I use a journal and incorporate Scripture into my prayers.  And I always begin with I Samuel 3:10- "Speak, Lord, for you servant is listening."

     Sometimes I listen to or sing praise music, light a candle, or write a psalm of praise to God.  Always I am changed....

     On the final day of camp, reveille was replaced by a cheesy song which happily proclaimed: "Good morning, good morning!"  What makes your morning good?  What is your reveille?

    

The Garden of Forking Paths

            My freshman comp teacher (whose name I have mercifully forgotten) believed himself to be a deep thinker. During class, he often dispensed wisdom about things he found witty, interesting, or absorbing while maintaining the façade of an academic elite. On a rainy day, he once said in a serious tone:  “The thing I hate most about rainy days is the rain leaves little brown circles on the toes of my tennis shoes, and they won’t wash out.”

He was study in contradiction who kept changing the rules.  This created frustration for students trying to determine exactly what their instructor required to get a good grade.  At the beginning of the semester, he promised a term paper at the end of semester would count for a large percentage of the final grade.  This produced hope that, while he gave out very low grades on essays, a good term paper could save us. 

But then, near the semester’s end, he suddenly had a mathematic epiphany and realized that allowing the final term paper to count so much would negate our earlier efforts.  This was exactly what we desired!

 

The most memorable thing about the class, however, was a single short story.  While we were required to purchase a literature book, we read only one story in the book.  We spent long, tortuous weeks reading and re-reading that story: The Garden of the Forking Paths by Jorge Luis Borges.  We studied the story line by line, word by word. With mind numbing determination, we discussed every nuance of the story, whether intended by the author or not.

 

"Red," he would say. "What deep, philosophical implications do you see in that word?"

 

This exhaustive examination of an obscure short story produced in most of his students a deep desire to bang heads against the brick walls of the class building.  The teacher’s motivation for such in-depth study of the story was lost on his students.

 

But the reason became clear to me a couple of years later when I learned that this instructor had written a thesis on The Garden of the Forking Paths by Jorge Luis Borges.  So we, his students, were unwitting and unpaid research assistants in his pursuit of a doctorate.

 

When I realized how the instructor had subtly coerced students to assist in his research while pretending to teach, I was outraged.  I felt disillusioned, cheated, even used.

 

He used his position for personal gain.  And the world seems to be sadly full of people like that today. What do you think?