Morning Poison

I pray from a Catholic devotional based on the Liturgy of the Hours called “Magnificat.” For every morning and evening prayer, there is a verse set as a response to a stanza in the psalm, and with the verse comes a summary of the psalm to help guide the pray-er in her meditation.

For this morning it mentioned “morning poison” which is the leftover garbage from the previous day, residual mess that only hinders our functioning for a new day. Morning poison is an apt name for this spiritual phenomenon. It’s the breakup that doesn’t settle until you wake up and realize that actually happened the day before. It’s the recollection of the past day’s choices, a harmful comment, or a sad reality about a person’s life.

The antidote for this poison is not denial, an quick-fix to a lingering problem. Denial can take many forms, even the deceptive satisfaction of putting on a smile with no regrets. Regrets play a part in dismissing the poison, as painful as it might be. What it takes is a cold confession to God, knowing the reality of what we can and can’t do, and seeing the day for what it is.

This is why I pray before anything else in the morning. If you wait to long, the poison will spread and do an incredible amount of harm.

The reality, like many kinds of poisons, is that it is natural at its start, though the fermentation over time makes it the lethal intruder to the spirit.

I’ve also found that if I can’t detect any poison, even if there is some, it will rise to the surface through silence or fasting. Take food away from me for a day and all the nastiness that has settled and assimilated to my soul will be purged and the sight is atrocious. Emotions arise along with bad habits that become undeniable.

The truth is that fasting can take many forms, the most obvious being what we all think of when we hear the word. Depriving ourselves of something that brings comfort and life, and letting the spiritual life rule in its stead.

Morning prayer can be a minor fast because it’s a deprivation of hurry and busyness, especially if our evenings end in a run, killing the poison hidden and revealed by stress.