She rises up as morning breaks
She moves among these rooms alone
Before we wake
And her heart is so full; it overflows
She waters us with love and the children grow.
— Andrew Peterson, “Planting Trees”
The young man at the airport shop had a duty, but he also gave a measure of joy to the red-eye commuters who passed his way. His job was like a piece of performance art, supervising self-checkout customers through the process of getting their goods paid for—a kind of long farewell to the role of checkout clerk. As I swiped my bottle of water, made compulsory by security measures around carrying liquids, he struck up casual conversation, asking about my day ahead. In many ways, there could be few more enforced encounters outside of incarceration—I needed the water for an unavoidable flight, he had to punch in his hours on the graveyard shift.
Our conversation was brief but surprisingly detailed. He learned about where I was headed to and the nature of my work, and I gleaned that he clocked off mid-morning but was returning home to do the final packing before a house move. Civilities exchanged, we parted company, but there was a lasting grace from this short conversation. I reflected that somewhere in his mind, this young man had made a decision about how to relate to the public and how to exercise the generosity of early rising. His morning shift, which began at 4 a.m., was an opportunity to help others begin their journey with an enriched sense of the humanity around them.
There can be a true generosity in early rising, a preemptive grace toward our world that is very powerful and, at times, genuinely sacrificial. It is this particular generosity that I want to explore here, suggesting some ways in which rising early can bless us and grace our world.
Generosity to our calling
The generosity of early rising partly lies in the unseen impact it has on the work we have been given to do and the currency of that work in the world. Kim Stafford’s touching biography of his poet father, William Stafford, carries the title Early Morning. William Stafford’s love of the first of the day suffuses the pages of Kim’s recollections, showing just how central to the fulfilment of vocation these hours were.
“My father’s example was there all through childhood, but largely invisible. We knew he rose early, and we knew the poems kept appearing in magazines, and every year or two he would hand us each a copy of his newest book, but the relation between the invisible practice and the visible performance was a mystery.“ [1]
This mystery was resolved by understanding the generous early mornings that William Stafford gave to the world, a deliberate and steady devotion of the hours when others slept to find the context and words that would eventually become his poems.
“When you read my father’s poems, you are with him there, in the early morning. Others are sleeping, but you are with him to discover something independent of frenzy, word by word before dawn. You can have a piece of that anytime you open one of his books.“
This is a stirring image, and one which led Kim Stafford deeply into the process of grieving his remarkable father, both as a poet and as a man. The stirring stillness of the house where his family slumbered, the wakefulness of a man watching for the inflection point where aphorisms and ideas become a poem, is descriptive of a certain kind of solitude, but also of private service to the public. Stafford’s words would go on to move and minister to those who became his readers, and the generosity of listening attentively and writing carefully show the sense of stewardship that he held in his early rising.
A parallel to this pattern can be found in Eugene Peterson’s description of Jeremiah’s ministry. In his evocative and empathetic treatment of the prophet’s life, Run with the Horses, Peterson focuses on the daily duty that Jeremiah fulfilled—bringing God’s living word to a people who were sluggish and resistant to the counsel it contained. Unlocking the secret of the prophet’s remarkable persistence, Run with the Horses is careful to pinpoint exactly how Jeremiah kept going:
“Jeremiah did not resolve to stick it out for twenty-three years, no matter what; he got up every morning with the sun. The day was God’s day, not the people’s. He didn’t get up to face rejection; he got up to meet with God. He didn’t rise to put up with another round of mockery, he rose to be with his Lord. That is the secret of his persevering pilgrimage—not thinking with dread about the long road ahead but greeting the present moment, every present moment, with obedient delight, with expectant hope.“ [2]
This is an early rising generosity to vocation, and to the God who gave it to him—a persistent delight in a commissioning God, even if the message only reached a cavilling people.
There is benefit to us in finding inspiration and application from these examples. William Stafford once wrote in his journal, “every day something keeps me from the main business of my soul” and his remedy for this was to rise to meet this soul business. The world is a richer place because he did, and our own pursuit of vocation, be it poetry, parenting, praying, or pursuing the bespoke gifting that God has given to us, is an act of grace.
Generosity to ourselves
The early hours of the day can be a sowing season for the day to come, a settled season before the haste of the world harries us into action and other priorities. Much good is done, unseen, by those who rise before day. There is a fleeting sweetness before a house awakens. The minor notes of the central heating click, and the fridge labouring to keep its whole world fresh, emphasise the other silences—the absence of loved ones’ voices and the music of their lives unfolding in the house. These absences are made sweet only by the promise of their return.
In these moments, or hours, I feel a centred stillness, a connection back to the world I left while sleeping and the “new every morning” joy that tells me God has been here all the time and has waited for me to wake to His goodness again.
I don’t rise early every day, but on those occasions when I do (and once the spark of caffeine has begun to kindle my mental processes), it always feels like a personal indulgence, an act of soul-enrichment. Having time to ease into the day, knowing that the phone can’t ring, that no one expects an email or text message reply at this hour of the day, liberates me to think, to be quiet, to wait, to pray, and to read. The early hours of the day are a self-made cloister and a great antidote to resenting the flow of people and incidents in our day that can fragment our focus and push our patience.
This generosity to ourselves is, ultimately, an act of generosity to others. To welcome family and work contacts into a day that I have prepared for, into a space that I have already cultivated for my own good and theirs, will bring a stilled centre to my interactions with them, and they, in turn, are more likely to be blessed by my engagement with them. To have had room to prepare, to meditate before God, to salve the emotions that carry through from the previous day, and to reset my coordinates for the day ahead mean that I am more likely to be gracious and hospitable with my time, energy, and emotions.
There is a generosity in early rising. It is not an option for everyone, but where it is we can find vocational fulfilment, personal enrichment, and better relational health by tending to the entrance hall of our day.
[1] This quotation and the next are from Kim Stafford’s beautiful biography of his father, Early Morning, published by Trinity University Press.
[2] Eugene Peterson’s Run with the Horses (published by IVP) is among his most highly acclaimed works. It is a pastorally sensitive and wisely applied study in the life of Jeremiah.
The featured image, “Cornfield Dawn,” is courtesy of Jordan Durbin and is used with her kind permission for Cultivating.
Andrew Roycroft is married to Carolyn, and they have two teenage daughters. Originally a
medievalist by training, Andrew served for 24 years in full-time Christian ministry – mostly in
local church pastorates. Andrew is a visiting lecturer at the Irish Baptist College, teaching
Biblical Theology and Apologetics. An active writer, Andrew has published poetry in a number of
Irish and British literary journals, has produced work for BBC Radio 4, has contributed to Arts
Council Northern Ireland projects, and written commissioned work for New Irish Arts. Andrew is
also a regular contributor to the Rabbit Room Poetry community. His first poetry collection, 33
(published by Square Halo Books in 2022) is a collaborative work with visual artist Ned Bustard,
offering reflections on John’s gospel. Since leaving pastoral work in November 2024, Andrew is
working as a freelance editor and writer.
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