Day 3 — Living Hope

Day 3 is the same long Cabo beach, a few breaths later. Rippled, foot-marked sand fills the foreground and runs away to the left, until it meets a line of dark rocks where the water starts. The sea is calm this morning: one thin line of foam along the shore, then open water all the way out to the horizon. And on the horizon, right at its middle, the sun has arrived as a single point of light — too small yet to call a disc, and far too bright to be anything else. For twenty-six seconds the point grows, almost imperceptibly, and the orange around it deepens. Almost nothing else moves. This morning keeps the last quiet instant before the sun stands up.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to his abundant mercy hath begotten us again unto a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. — 1 Peter 1:3

This beach is in Los Cabos, at the southern tip of Baja California Sur. If you go to stand in this light yourself, go while it is still dark: in early November the sun rises here at about 6:25 a.m. local time, and colours like these belong to the half hour before it. Face east from the long beaches on the San José del Cabo side — the open sand of Playa Hotelera, or the south end of Playa Palmilla — and watch for the point of light. The song under this morning is Living Hope, the third song of the cycle, sung the way a congregation sings it; this morning runs a little longer than the others, twenty-six seconds, because hope is worth the extra breath. A living hope — most mornings, that is what a sunrise is: proof, arriving right on time, that the story is not over. Tomorrow, Day 4, same time — 8:00 a.m. — the morning opens with 10,000 Reasons.