加拿大創作歌手戈登．萊特福特（Gordon Lightfoot）有好幾首英文經典歌曲聞名於世。但他也有一首鮮為人知的歌曲（The Minstrel of the Dawn），內容講述一位吟遊詩人（將詩歌譜曲演唱的歌手）在黎明時分，選擇以音樂和詩歌驅散憂鬱，歌頌生活中的美好和希望。萊特福特筆下的吟遊詩人與我們一樣，渴望快樂多過憂鬱。雖然總會有一些令人憂鬱的事情縈繞心頭，但這位詩人選擇在新的一天到來時，專注於快樂的事物，並以歌聲唱出來。

詩人大衛也寫過類似的詩句：「早晨要高唱祢的慈愛」（詩篇59篇16節）。大衛需要面對很多令他憂鬱的事：仇敵隨時起來攻擊他，惡人誹謗與密謀陷害他（1-3節）。他吟唱：「他們夜晚回來，嚎叫如狗，在城中遊蕩」（14節，當代譯本修訂版）。然而，大衛選擇在新的一天到來之際，不僅專注於快樂的事物，更是定睛於那位良善的上帝身上，歌頌祂的慈愛：「祢作過我的高臺，在我急難的日子作過我的避難所。⋯⋯是賜恩與我的上帝。」（16-17節）

你我或許不是創作歌手，但還是可以成為黎明的吟遊詩人，像大衛一樣向上帝宣告：「我要歌頌祢的力量，早晨要高唱祢的慈愛。」（16節）

Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot is best known for enduring classics like “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” and “If You Could Read My Mind.” But one of his lesser-known songs is titled “The Minstrel of the Dawn.” (A minstrel is a troubadour, a singer who puts his poetry to music.) Like us, Lightfoot’s troubadour longs to be “more happy than blue.” Although there are always “blue” things to think about or dwell on, the minstrel chooses to focus on happy things as the new day dawns and then to sing about them.

The minstrel of the psalms, David, penned a similar line: “In the morning I will sing of your love” (Psalm 59:16). David had plenty of “blue” things to dwell on—from enemies ready to attack him to fierce men slandering and conspiring against him (vv. 1-3). “They return at evening,” he sang, “snarling like dogs, and prowl about the city” (v. 14). But he chose, as the new day dawned, to focus not simply on something happy but on someone good—God—and then sing of God’s love, “my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble” (v. 16) on “whom I can rely” (v. 17).

You may not be a singer-songwriter, but you can still be a minstrel of the dawn. Like David, you can tell God, “I will sing of your strength, in the morning I will sing of your love” (v. 16).