...with the dawn

Being walkers with the dawn and morning,
Walkers with the sun and morning,
We are not afraid of night,
Nor days of gloom,
Nor darkness---
Being walkers with the sun and morning.
---Langston Hughes

The easiest person to be is yourself. The most comfortable skin to live in is your own. The easiest nature to seek out is your true nature. Being who we are should not be tough; it should be---well, second nature. 

In Langston Hughes' minimalist masterpiece Walkers with the Dawn, the American 20th-century poet emphasized the embrace of one's true nature. Because Hughes' people are dawn walkers, because they walk with the sun, they do not fear the night, nor dark days, nor clouded times. It is not because those times of darkness, or shadow, or unseeing, are not real---or really daunting.

But dawn walkers have it in their nature to know that light is there---behind the gloom, or after it. The nature of Hughes' people was to seek the sun. This was no extraordinary feat---it was in their nature.

As children of God, our nature is to be people of hope. By walking in hope we do not deny the tough times, or refuse to take a path that leads through them. But our nature is to abide in the hope, not the shadow. It is who we are.