Lectio Divina texts: sleep and Wakefulness
God puts his children to sleep so he can get their work done. “Sleep is God's contrivance for giving us the help he cannot get into us when we are awake,” —George MacDonald.
The body in the invisible Familiar room accepts the gift
Of sleep, and for a while is still; Instead of will, it lives by drift
In the great night that gathers up The earth and sky. Slackened, unbent,
Unwanting, without fear or hope, The body rests beyond intent.
Sleep is the prayer the body prays, Breathing in unthought faith the Breath
That through our worried-wearied days Preserves our rest, and is our truth.
A Timbered Choir, V 1990 pg. 121 by Wendell Berry
A morning prayer: Good morning, Lord, I love you.
I know you love me as a beloved son/daughter.
What are you up to today? I want to be part of it.
The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.
Don’t go back to sleep.
You must ask for what you really want.
Don’t go back to sleep.
People are going back and forth across the doorsill
Where two worlds touch.
The door is round and open.
Don’t go back to sleep. —Rumi
Sleep also represents death, a type of 'waiting period' from which God and Jesus will reawaken us to the bright morning light of eternal life. –- Kathleen Norris, from Quotidian Mysteries
When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, “Surely the Lord is in this place, and I did not know it!”—Genesis 28:16 Barbara Brown Taylor on how God shows up in all things
Author Lauren Winner was asked how we as followers of Jesus can be more counterculture. Her answer? “Get more sleep.” Miss Winner admitted the curious nature of her comment. "Surely one could come up with something more other-directed, more sacrificial, less self-serving,” she wrote. Still, she reasoned, “a night of good sleep—a week, or month, or year of good sleep—testifies to a countercultural embrace of sleep (that) bears witness to values higher than ‘the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for other things’”
Begin to find joy in what really matters. So that when you wake in the morning, you can't help unfold your hands to the heavens, and though you grieve and though you wonder, though the world is ugly, it is beautiful-- and though time moves on, and the planet spins, a blur, its moments are holy. And you can slow and you can wake and you can trust and you can find the joy you're aching for , joy paying attention to all the moments with your whispered offering of thanks. Because this is how you begin to spend your one life well-- receiving each moment for what it really is: holy, ordinary, amazing grace. A gift. —Ann Voskamp
Wake up from your sleep, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. —Eph.5:14
The seed is in the ground. Now may we rest in hope while darkness does its work.
—Wendell Berry, A Timbered Choir, sabbath poems V 1990
When a great moment knocks on the door of your life, it is often no louder than the beating of your heart, and it is very easy to miss it. –Boris Pasternak
By Waking Up we are speaking of any spiritual experience which overcomes our experience of the self as separate from God. This is variously referred to as enlightenment, awakening, or unitive consciousness, and it should be the full Christian meaning of salvation. Unfortunately, we pushed all waking up into something that would hopefully happen later, in heaven or after death, or as a reward for good behavior in this world. This was a major loss and defeat for Christianity and a disastrous misplacement of attention. We became a religion of religious transactions more than spiritual transformation. Waking up should be the goal of all spiritual work, sacraments, and Bible study- –R. Rohr
“In vain you rise early and stay up late, toiling for food to eat, for he gives to those he loves while they sleep.” -–Psalm 127: 1-2 We begin our day when the sun comes up. We leap out of bed, brew coffee, wolf down an energy bar and rush out the door to begin our work. Only when our work is done do we rest, and, of course, our work is never done. There’s always one more e-mail to answer, one more chore to complete, one more errand to run. Israel’s sequence of evening and morning pictures the attitude we should embrace toward all our efforts. Our work begins with rest—rest in a God of infinite resources. When we awaken to begin our work, we rise to join Him in a work in progress, for he does not slumber nor sleep.
It’s useless to drive ourselves in anxious frenzy, the psalmist pleads, as if success depends on our efforts. We must work hard and we must be faithful in all we do, but everything depends upon God. He has been working throughout eternity to gain our highest good. Thus in simple faith we rest “that He, who knows and loves, will do the best.”---David Roper e-musings
Until an objective inner witness (the Holy Spirit) emerges that looks back at us with utter honesty, we cannot speak of being awake or conscious. That is at the heart of what we mean by “waking up.” Unfortunately, people so fear a negative and judgmental critic that they never seem to access the “Compassionate Witness” promised us in the gift of the Holy Spirit. - Rohr
