SLEEPING ALL THE WAY [T, 7-6-21]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

SLEEPING ALL THE WAY   [T, 7-6-21]

 

Old people spend a lot of time in waiting rooms, and those are good places for overhearing, even in this twilight of the pandemic isolation, when there are not as many people in waiting rooms. So I heard a couple of men discussing sleep patterns. “I slept only three hours last night,” one of them said. “If I sleep too much at night, I can’t sleep after work.” I do not understand what that means. It sounds like a very strange sleeping pattern

Most of us, during our working years, have to get up at a certain time, either to get to the job or school on time, or to get others to jobs or school on time. We set an alarm clock, or we are so used to it that we automatically get up at the right time.

Helen was so used to getting up at five a.m. when she was a teacher that she woke up at that early hour for several years after she retired. It really griped her. She finally had the chance to sleep in, and she couldn’t. Eventually, though, her brain adjusted. Now she can sleep until eight if her body needs extra rest.

I don’t have a job pattern anymore, a time when I have to sleep, so that I can get up at a certain time, so my body can fall into its natural rhythm. In retirement, no regular alarm clock is necessary. I don’t have to be any place at a certain time. I just sleep until I wake up. Then I get up, and wash last night’s dishes while the coffee is perking.

Occasionally, though, I have a required rising time. Because so much of my inside was removed by surgery, I have to hang close to the bathroom the first four hours after I get up. If I must be some place by nine, I have to get up at five. When I have one of those alarm clock mornings, it is harder for me to fall asleep and stay that way.

Some old people don’t need much sleep. My late friend, Bill White, slept only a few hours each night. I think he had a clear conscience.

It is hard to sleep if you are looking forward to something, either with joy or with dread. It is hard to sleep if you are angry or in pain or worried or guilty or excited. Good sleep requires a clear conscience or a dead one.

The “aging right” people tell us that sleep is very important for old people. That means that we need to clear up our consciences.

Purpose of sleep is regeneration. Dreaming is part of that. It’s part of the rhythm of the body and the brain. Perhaps death, which we often liken to sleep, is just part of the rhythm.

That is part of Christian faith, that death is sleep, part of the rhythm. We fall asleep in death, but the day of resurrection will come, when we shall be awakened by the alarm clock of God, those trumpeting angels.

Maybe that is why so many old people have trouble sleeping out the night. Our consciences are not all that bad, but we’re excited about what the morning will bring.

John Robert McFarland

“The gods have given us death lest we weary of life.”