Morning Has Broken

When my husband and I first hacked a farm out of a cedar forest forty years ago, we named it The Farm at Morning Has Broken.  It somehow seemed to fit with where we were in our lives at that time; we had decided to give up our family counseling center in Louisiana, and move to land we owned in the Appalachian Mountains in order to begin an adventure in self-sufficient farming.  We soon learned that a “self-sufficient” farm was a bottomless pit into which one throws money, but we had a wonderful time, and although life has taken on many different shapes since that time so long ago, I’m still at it.  The name has become shortened to just The Farm over the years, but this morning, in the half-light of the first snow of the season, I was struck by its beauty, and reminded of this wonderful old hymn from which we adopted the name in the beginning.

Morning has broken like the first morning
Blackbird has spoken like the first bird
Praise for the singing
Praise for the morning
Praise for them springing fresh from the world

Sweet the rain’s new fall, sunlit from heaven
Like the first dewfall on the first grass
Praise for the sweetness of the wet garden
Sprung in completeness where his feet pass