May 7thDawn Chorus
- by Sue Carr
It’s early, still dark, and I’m awake.
Outside, a lone robin begins a few tentative notes. It repeats them, and then takes a break. A few bars of rest, and the phrase is sung again with some variations on the original theme.
With no knowledge of its audience, human or otherwise, the robin continues, and eventually others join in with an improvised counterpoint.
How did they know night was about to end? I’d been awake for a while, and to my eyes we were a long way from the glimmer that heralds dawn.
Why sing now? Why not earlier? Or later when the day begins? Google has all kinds of answers, but sometimes not the ones that make sense.
What if the robin is embodying a prophetic act? Anticipating the end of darkness, it welcomes the coming dawn as an act of faith, not sight. Perhaps the robin has waited so long it’s almost ready to give up, but in the face of silence from the others it leads because someone has to.
Maybe it's part of what C.S.Lewis called The Deep Magic, set in place at the time of Creation by the Emperor-beyond-the-Sea; the rhythm of dawn-following-darkness written deep into the robins, an ancient wisdom from before we measured time in shrinking increments.
Maybe I’m just sleep deprived.
But I expect I’m not alone, with a brain going round in overlapping circles. In a world that seems increasingly unpredictable and cruel, how will all of our children and grandchildren navigate their futures? What hope is there for those of us on the margins to know themselves as beloved? Where is all this taking us?
The robin sings anyway. Because darkness cannot hold back the dawn, and singing in the face of darkness is an act of courage. It was evident as those groups of peaceful Mennonite protestors sang their way from Harrisonburg, VA to Washington DC, where some of them were arrested as they sang hymns in a federal building. Robins indeed.
So tomorrow I’ll be listening for the robin, and today I will remind myself that the depths of sin and darkness are no match for the dawn sweeping across the horizon. We will continue to sing together until the day dawns and the light chases away the darkness.
Because, sisters and brothers, the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
-Sue Carr is a pastor at The Meeting Place in Hamilton, Ontario.