Healthy. Wealthy. Wise.

I wish I could be an early riser.

Part of me idealizes waking up at the break of dawn, getting the morning paper, a cup of joe and enjoying the stillness before the day comes to life.

I like twilight (small “t”) – dusk and dawn. I’m seen a fair share more dusks in my day though. It’s that time when things don’t look quite like they are supposed to look or at least how you remember them looking during the day (or night).

I remember playing catch with my dad and I was not quite so fond of dusk then. I’d want to keep playing until my nose was in danger of being broken by a rapidly-advancing baseball that blended perfectly with the quickly-graying night sky.

I originally had a Lou Whitaker autograph model mitt, followed by a Bo Jackson model that was replaced by a non-autograph model in high school which I then lost while at college. But then my buddy Melvin gave me a mitt he found in the bathroom at Dodger Stadium.

With this new mitt, I joined the baseball team (The Preachers) while at seminary. It served me well at second base. I felt much less afraid in my fielding this time around than I did 10 years prior.

In manning the keystone for the Preachers, I had my first opportunity to play under the lights. I felt like a big leaguer. But I also felt sad. Because Baseball felt sad. I don’t think it’s a game that is meant to thrive at night. It does. And it does it well, but it knows that it is just moon lighting. Baseball is meant for the afternoon, but even so, a day game is a relic. It exists as a once-a-week token Sunday matinee, with an occasional weekday game. But it’s a shadow of the past. Like the Sunday drive in the country. Like reading the newspaper early in the morning with a cup of Joe. Maybe it’s all just good in theory, but not in practice. Gotta watch out for those things. There’s a lot of them.

Bonhoeffer wrote something about how it’s not natural for man to be up at night, living his life illuminated by the glow of a florescent tube; his internal clock determined by an artificial time schedule. He actually wrote none of those words. That is just how I remember what he said. And I’ll leave it at that. Good night. See you in the morning.