Knowing this, I suggest that when you wake up every morning, you kneel by your bed, or sit on the edge of it, and pray this: “God, whether I get anything else done today, I want to make sure that I spend time loving you and loving other people — because that’s what life is all about. I don’t want to waste this day.” Why should God give you another

Zen Roshi Philip Kapleau said it well, “If we do not learn to perceive the mystery and beauty of our present life, our present hour, we shall not perceive the worth of any life, of any hour.”1

Eugene Peterson points out that the Hebrew concept of a day actually begins with evening, not with morning as we are accustomed to thinking. This means that each day begins with the rhythm of evening sleep and rest before the daylight hours of work and activity.7 After we sleep, we awaken to find that God has been working while we have rested: maki

Little is to be expected of that day, if it can be called a day, to which we are not awakened by our Genius, but by the mechanical nudgings of some servitor, are not awakened by our own newly acquired force and aspirations from within, accompanied by the undulations of celestial music, instead of factory bells, and a fragrance filling the air—to a