6 A.M.

I own a city park. If we were playing Two Truths and a Lie, you would think that was the lie.

It's not always mine. Sometimes it belongs to the runners in colorful jackets, to gossipy mamas pushing strollers. To canoodling teenagers and to German Shepherds.

But it's mine right now, in the cold, quiet darkness just before the sunrise.

I'm  sitting in a balcony, listening to a symphony. The melody of water pouring over rocks just to my left. The harmony in the middle and the low, steady notes from the section at the end. My symphony has been playing for years and years, eroding its instruments a little, but never growing tired. It has had many, many visitors. People walk past, silhouettes on the shining curve of the bridge. Tourists lean over the rails and applaud. Businessmen hurry on without a glance. Still, my symphony plays, heedless of encores and of silence.

Now, in the glow of the lanterns, the river glimmers faintly. I'm walking down a path, past crumpled flowers on sticks. It's cold- I'm going to have to leave my park soon. But I want to get just a little closer to the water.

Water is mysterious.

The sky is lightening. Faint spots of light blue in the deep, dark blue over the bridge. And I can see the rocks more clearly. Great rugged boulders and smaller ones, piled up by giants who once tried to block the onslaught of the falls. The empty place in the middle, proof that they gave it up as a bad job. And the tiny ripple of a mini-fall running through the giving-up place.

A bird flies past, wings extended, just past my head- as though it's used to me, or I'm invisible. And now the sky is a mixture of light gray-blue and dark gray-blue, clouds rushing behind black, brushy treetops.

The air is brighter, and ducks are cavorting in the water.

I look up, and I'm surprised by pink streaks of sunrise. It looks like God painted the clouds a moment ago, while I was typing. I didn't catch the exact moment of transformation.

This is my place of peace. I feel that if I could live here, I'd be a better person. But I can take a little bit of it back with me to my mundane, working world. Maybe just the knowledge that God loves me enough to show it to me. I am grateful.