Volume 7, Issue 8, page 5

With
By ARTHUR J. BURKS

PART I. Chap. 1 -- TOP OF THE MORNING
ME COCK crew or the alarm clock exploded or the time fixed in your
head on retiring caused you to
waken. For a moment you hesitated,
sorting out the facts of the time.

That fact was a source of regret
and satisfaction; regret that last
night's rest had been broken, satisfaction that you had wakened on
time. The morning was bright enough
that The Picture moved immediately out of
the shadow to your left, beside the window thru which the bright rays of morning
came. For a few dreamy moments, while you
pulled your legs from under the sheets
and blankets and planted your feet firmly
on the floor, you were not sure whether
His nimbus was paint of The Picture or
something the sun-to-come already draped
around the handsome Head of Jesus. From
The Picture He looked directly at you.
His eyes didn't move, actually, nor did
His lips.
"This is the day," your spouse said
softly, "that the Lord has made!"
The words, part of the usual morning
greeting, brought things more sharply into focus, made you remember your resolution.
"Yes," you whispered. "Yes. This day.
and every day."
There was the commitment, the agreement of the morning's top, the first agreement of the day. It wasn't a blue Monday,
an unlucky Tuesday, a gray Wednesday, a
tense Thursday, a chaotic Friday, a sad
Saturday, a demanding Sunday. It was your
day. The day was made for you, that part
of it thru which you moved -- a vast amount
of day, when you considered it, reaching
both ways from eternity -- and you made of
it what you would. It was a free gift, generous, full, pressed down and running over.

You studied The Picture as you slippea
into your dressing gown and slippers, or
mules, depending on whether, perhaps, you
were man or woman. Having garbed yourself
warmly you moved closer to The Picture.
Did Jesus look like that? Well,of all the
many imaginative drawings of Him you had
seen, this struck you as being the most
likely. It was the way you wished Him to
look. Of course, today He wouldn't wear
His hair so long that it dropped down His
back and draped His shoulders. The spade
beard, however well trimmed, might attract
attention today, too. Probably Jesus
wouldn't mind, yet you felt sure He was
never deliberately conspicuous, never
shs

pushed Himself to the front. He spent His
brief life among sinners, but He didn't
lord it over them, nor do anything to
make Himself stand out, except that He
lived more according to Divine Law than
most men you'd ever read about or known.
He was The Great Exemplar, but He didn't,
in spite of that, show off.

You doubted very much if the general
picture of Him in the public mind was
wholly accurate. It didn't agree with your
picture of Him, which of course could be
just as wrong as that of any artist. You
thought of something as you tightened the
belt of your robe and studied His face
closely. He had said:
"Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I also in the
midst of them."
You were not sure about the exact quotation. You'd have to look it up some day,
possibly before the end of this day. But
it was reasonably accurate and gave you
this idea:
"You're Jesus. At the same time You're
pretty much what I think You are. That
doesn't mean that You look a bit like me,
nor that I can aspire to look like You.
You're my Elder Brother."
The picture was only a head, but you
had seen other pictures, and it wasn't
difficult to supply the rest of the body
in your mind. You wished very much to do
that, too, because you were trying something, trying something with great determination, beginning this very morning.
Well, actually, it began last night, when
you took the idea to bed with you. You'd
had it for some time, but the struggles
of the day made you forget long before
bedtime again, so that you forgot to sort
of go hunting in your sleep. Last night
you had remembered. After you had turned
off the light you had looked at the darkness which hid The Picture on the wall.
You had seen Jesus, instead, enthroned
behind your heart, and you had said to
Him, as a friend, brother, neighbor, and
counsellor:
"Into Your 'lands 1 commend my body,
every atom of it, and my spirit. Do with
it as You will, during my sleep, that I
may be wholly prepared to spend all day
tomorrow, beginning at 6 A.M., tryin my
best to live as You would live, if You
were in my place, my home, my family, and
held down my job. I'm sure that as an ex