I remember, when I was twenty or thirty, that sleep once filled an entire night. I'd lie down, close my eyes, and when I awoke, it would be morning.
Technically, this is still true, but by "morning" I now mean "one in the morning" or "four in the morning." Some of this is a factor of my fifty six year old bladder. Some is a factor of my tendency to go to sleep waaaay earlier. By ten thirty in the PM, I'm typically all tuckered out.
But much of it is just me gettin' old. I'll wake, and be fully awake, with the night still stretching out ahead of me.
There've been times, when I was younger, when I've experienced insomnia. Typically, they were times of intense disruption and anxiety, when I'd wake with my mind churning and a knot in my gut. In such circumstances, the absence of sleep can become a self-reinforcing waking nightmare, as you rouse, get stressed about the fact that you aren't sleeping, and then the stress of not sleeping itself is enough to keep you tossing and fitful.
For the last few years, though, I've come at those times differently. I began using the time to pray, and now, that's become my default.
When I open my eyes to the depth of night, it's a blessing, because that's a great time to pray. I do pray to begin the day, and during the day, but sometimes there's so much going on that those daytime prayers just don't come.
Lying there in bed? It's not like there's anything else I need to be doing. So I pray. I'll offer a word of gratitude for sleeplessness itself, and the space it provides to tend to my soul's needs.
I'll offer thanksgiving for whatever goodness the day served up. I'll remember folks who are on the church prayer list, and offer words over their struggles. I'll set the names of friends and family before the Creator of the Universe, and express my yearnings for their wholeness and health. I'll recall the mess of our world, and those in need.
Eventually, sleep returns to me in its own time. As I feel myself gently fading, I'll pray the Lord's Prayer, bridging my way back into dreams.
Benedictine Matins it ain't. It's a far softer and more organic cousin to that monastic prayer.
Yet it lends me an appreciation for that ancient tradition, one that find gracious purpose in the deep of the night.
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