Rise & Shine!

Rise & Shine!

By Allen Merritt © 2018

As Easter approaches, I find myself thinking about several early morning phrases such as “Morning Glory,” “Wake up sleepy-head,” “Up and at ‘em lazy bones” and, of course, “Rise and shine.”

Rise and shine particularly stands out to me.

I suppose it is because of how it suggests being called up out of our slumber or dark place. Maybe it speaks to me as a voice of encouragement. Either way, it has a measure of meaning attached to it. It steps beyond the standard early morning wake-up call.

We're not just waking up, getting out of bed, and splashing our face, brushing our teeth, having breakfast and getting started with our day. Rise and shine refers to the idea of working towards our goals; achieving and believing. It also has something to do with perseverance, resilience and bouncing back after an unfortunate event, tragedy or obstacle. Think of the Phoenix rising out of the ashes.

Last November, a friend of mine experienced a tragic moment when his house caught fire and burned down to the ground. He lost almost everything including a lot of product which was part of his business. Fortunately, he chose to keep a positive mindset. He told me he had no time to be sad. He was moving forward. He was doing lots of things to keep his life going in a positive direction. More importantly, he continued working on his project and promoting his business venture despite the circumstances. My friend is truly a prime example of the rise and shine mentality, like the Phoenix flying up and out of the ashes.

I think of this during Easter as it is an important reminder of the rise and shine principle. In Christian tradition, Jesus was persecuted, buried and rose on the third day.  The story about his resurrection is something all human beings can relate to no matter what your faith is. Whether you believe that a man could have come back and resurrected from the dead and ascend into a spiritual realm or not doesn’t make any difference. Why? Because we all experience different kinds of situations where we feel like we're losing ourselves. 

There are times we are not on target. Times we’re not moving forward. Times we are being forced under, as if we're drowning. And yet, somehow we keep on keeping on and bounce back. The rise and shine perspective demonstrates our nature toward continuing on and surviving.

I once worked on a workshop production of a beautiful musical entitled Abyssinia while living in New York City. This wonderful piece brought together a diverse group of people; the spirit of music coupled with faith in the midst of tragic events and combined them in such a fashion to leave you with some measure of hope toward everything life offers up. It speaks of healing over time. I recall one numbers lyrics going something like this: 

Rise and shine sweet spirit, make this a happy day! 

Rise and shine sweet spirit, make this a happy day!

We are survivors. That’s what we do. We grow, learn and survive.

Sometimes we may not think we are, but it’s what we do because we're living beings until we’re not.

So in some part of my brain I’m thinking resilience, rising and shining and moving forward towards the end of one day and the beginning of each new day means we are stronger than we know. We are beyond capable. Something within us revives, resurrects and resumes where we left off. We rise and we shine.

For what it's worth, it seems an appropriate day to remind ourselves that keeping our mental perspective in sync with living a life of positivity helps us achieve that goal of not only rising and shining, but in moving onward from that which would hold us down.

Keep up that good spirit this week. Remember the song!

Rise and shine sweet spirit AND make it a happy day!

Cheers!