Upadinawa Honda Dawasak

A good day is being born,
a lovely heart is being met,
a kind word is being spoken,
a Christian hope is coming to life

Through the eye, the lip, through word and deed,
to make beauty, and to give beauty,
we give our hearts

The good gift that God has brought
is love, in the shape of a human being
receiving that love in our humanity,
a good day is being born

Giving a light out of the confusion,
creating a world full of beauty,
shaping us in the image of God,
a good day has dawned

This is a hymn of hope and new beginnings, and its recurring line rings like a sunrise, “a good day is being born.” It looks at the world not with despair but with expectancy, seeing goodness breaking in through small, human things, “a lovely heart is being met, a kind word is being spoken, a Christian hope is coming to life.” The dawn of a “good day” is not an event in the sky but the arrival of kindness, meeting and hope among people.

The middle verse makes that hope practical and shared. “Through the eye, the lip, through word and deed, to make beauty, and to give beauty, we give our hearts.” Goodness is something we participate in, with our looks, our words and our actions, offering our hearts so that beauty can be made and passed on.

Its theological centre is beautiful and simple: “the good gift that God has brought is love, in the shape of a human being.” That is the Incarnation, God’s love taking human form in Jesus, and the song adds that when we “receive that love in our humanity,” the good day is born in us too. The final verse widens to the whole story, “giving a light out of the confusion, creating a world full of beauty, shaping us in the image of God,” and lands on quiet triumph, “a good day has dawned.” What the listener is left with is a gentle, hopeful faith, the conviction that because God’s love came among us in human form and made us in his own image, every day carries the possibility of goodness being born again.