Job 7:4 When I lie down I say, ‘When shall I rise?’ But the night is long, and I am full of tossing until dawn.
Psalm 127:2 … for He gives sleep to His beloved.
There are many nights when I identify with Job. I am full of tossing until dawn. I tell myself that ‘Jesus loves me this I know’, but despite the reassuring words of Solomon in his Psalm, I do not immediately receive the gift of sleep. I recite the 23rd Psalm, the Lord’s Prayer and other beloved verses from scripture, and even the little prayer my mother taught her small daughter, ‘Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take’. I was never frightened by this prayer because I knew that awake or asleep, God cared for me. And I usually fell asleep immediately. But now, no longer a child, not even young or middle aged, I’m wide awake. I name the States in alphabetical order, the Presidents in my lifetime, going back to Hoover, the countries I’ve visited. I picture myself, with Frank, walking on favorite beaches. I name hymns in alphabetical order. There is no end to the mind games I play courting sleep. Sometimes they work, often not. And it seems to be a greater problem when the moon is full. (Don’t talk to me about werewolves or loonies!)
I keep books on my bedside table. I’m reading, ‘Voices from the Trail of Tears’. Stories about treatment (mistreatment) of the Cherokee bring tears. Lately I’ve been reading poetry from ‘101 Famous Poems’. Poems I’ve heard and read for as far back as I can remember. I remember hearing Daddy read or recite many when I was a child. And in his final years, I read them to him He would often say the words as I read. Longfellow’s ‘Psalm of Life’ was a favorite, as was Tennyson’s ‘Crossing the Bar’. And he sometimes expressed the wish ‘to live in a house by the side of the road and be a friend to man’. So many of his favorites, and mine, in this little book. I can hear the thundering of horses’ hooves as I read ‘The Midnight ride of Paul Revere’. I see the shores of ‘Gitche Gumee by the shining-big-sea-water’of Hiawatha’s Childhood. I see the ‘daffodils on a thousand hills’, and lament the fate of ‘my Captain’. Words of Thomas Gray’s ‘Elegy Written in a Country Church-Yard’ have beauty and meaning I did not see or appreciate when I was in my teens. This is true of so many of the poems that were required reading during school days.
Last night (actually about 2:00 am today) I discovered ‘Thanatopsis by William Cullen
Bryant, 1794-1878. I don’t remember ever reading this poem or hearing of this poet. (You may know it. If not, you can find it on Google.) I found it amazing and profound. It’s quite long and I quote just snippets. ‘….Yet a few days and thee….the sun no more shall see, …yet not to thine eternal resting place shalt thou retire alone…Thou shalt lie down with patriarchs…kings…the powerful… the wise…the good…seers from ages past. All in one mighty sepulcher. And millions since first the flight of years began, have laid down in their last sleep…all shall come and make their bed with thee.’ There’s a lot more to it than this, but the message I got was that the ‘sweet babe and the gray-haired man shall one day be gathered to thy side’.I accept this and believe that we are dust and that to dust we shall return. But I had not thought about sharing my space in the dust with patriarchs, kings and so on. But I believe in the resurrection of the body. Yet, my human imagination cannot fathom all the graves, from all times and in all places, and the depth of the seas and deep crevasses and dense forests giving up their dead. I’m glad I’m not in charge of all that. Now I’ll worry about how on earth I’ll remember all those names. Sure gets complicated. It’s enough to keep a body awake!
Tess Todd
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