“Arise, Oh Sleeper”

For many years, too many, I have sought refuge in sleep. I am one of those people who, if left to their own devices, will sleep far too late into the day and wake up not refreshed but, more often, anxious. Perhaps that anxiety comes from a deep sense that I am wasting too much of my life in the fitful darkness of un-needed slumber.

It is well known that people who are depressed either sleep too much or too little, and during previous periods in that condition mine was the first problem. Now I find that, even though no longer clinically depressed, I often continue to nap when I do not really need one, to “sleep in” when I could and most likely should be “redeeming the time.”

Lately I’ve also wondered about missing the sublime beauty of the morning. I could say that I’ve always been a “night person” however that would be dishonest. I have been one for most of my life, but not all. The fact is I remember the distant past of my early childhood when I could not wait to get out of bed and into a day filled with good things. These were the things I took for granted in the innocence of that time, wonderful things I thought would always last but didn’t. Yet childhood seemed to me then a sort of world without end, and I didn’t want to miss any of it. In Louis Armstrong’s words I loved both “the bright, blessed day” and “the dark, sacred night”. In fact I believe that I loved both equally.

Now the beginning of the day is a time to drag myself out of a warm bed and face my adult responsibilities and anxieties. I hardly notice the glory of the morning any more and haven’t for many, many years. But recently some of my spiritual meditations have become focused, almost without conscious thought, on light. My mother once told me that the first intelligible word I ever uttered was “light”. I guess I was fascinated by it, as many infants and toddlers are. Now I find myself becoming fascinated by it, in all its forms, once more and perhaps the most beautiful natural light there is is morning light. But that would mean waking up extra-early to sit by a window facing East. That would mean getting less than the absolute maximum amount of sleep I can get away with and, for now, I just do not want to make the effort.

For now….

I suppose I have made a kind of idolatry of sleep. Because of this uncomfortable thought, I do not think it strange that my sleep hasn’t been deeply restful in a very long time, that my dreams are far more often disturbing than not, that the enemy of my soul has always attacked me most horribly and effectively in some of those dreams….and yet I continue to sleep whenever I can.

Perhaps it is high time that I ask my believing friends and loved ones to pray for this literal “sleeper” to “arise” and feel more of the warmth and light of Christ shining upon him. I say this because, left to my own devices, to my own spiritual “strength” I believe I will continue to use unconsciousness as a refuge from the difficulties of my life rather than a time to be recharged to meet and overcome them…and this is not good.

The dawn was once magical to me, a long, long time ago. I suspect it could be again and this time with the added grace of perceiving the sunrise as a believer in the One Who arose from His own deeper slumber one bright morning two-thousand years ago…and exceeded even its light with His own.