Sleeping for Lent
Joni here, reporting from the field.
I do not come from a Lenten tradition. As a Baptist, it was those Catholic folks across town that participated in such suspicious, potentially cultic rituals. Ashes on your forehead. Incense up your nose. Water sprinkled about. We advocated one good dunking that almost drowned you! Thankfully God saved me from myself and my ignorance.
I joined our daughter in observing Lent a few years back. Gave up sodas. She was grateful to have a companion in her sacrifice. I still feel guilty. While I have a soda here or there, I am not a big fan. The real sacrifice would have been chocolate. No need to mention that at the time. I was only a Lenten companion.
Bob mentioned that I took Lauren Winner's Books and Culture article on sleep seriously. Lauren stated that sleeping was a radically counter-cultural act for a follower of Christ. I approach each day as a possible 24 hours of production. Sleep is a subtraction from the equation. I take great pride in my productive capacity. Of course I am highly effective at 2:00 a.m. Isn't everyone? I feel a perverted sense of accomplishment when I am the last one in all my communication loops to send an email. If you stay up all night, then you get a jump on the next day...well...because...it IS the next day.
There seems to be less yelling around our house. Amazing how patient I can be with two teenagers when I have a night's sleep under my belt. Curious how much more lucid I am in the work I do. The fog of my exhausted mind has strangely cleared. We have become reacquainted, my pillow and me. It is a lovely friendship. I am toying with the belief that God will allow me to take my pillow with me to Heaven.
Pride goeth before a fall. This includes falling over due to lack of sleep. You still have several days before Easter. Join me in taking up rest for your Lenten discipline. Then let the resurrection message spur you to embrace the gift of rest given by the God of love.
Joni
I do not come from a Lenten tradition. As a Baptist, it was those Catholic folks across town that participated in such suspicious, potentially cultic rituals. Ashes on your forehead. Incense up your nose. Water sprinkled about. We advocated one good dunking that almost drowned you! Thankfully God saved me from myself and my ignorance.
I joined our daughter in observing Lent a few years back. Gave up sodas. She was grateful to have a companion in her sacrifice. I still feel guilty. While I have a soda here or there, I am not a big fan. The real sacrifice would have been chocolate. No need to mention that at the time. I was only a Lenten companion.
Bob mentioned that I took Lauren Winner's Books and Culture article on sleep seriously. Lauren stated that sleeping was a radically counter-cultural act for a follower of Christ. I approach each day as a possible 24 hours of production. Sleep is a subtraction from the equation. I take great pride in my productive capacity. Of course I am highly effective at 2:00 a.m. Isn't everyone? I feel a perverted sense of accomplishment when I am the last one in all my communication loops to send an email. If you stay up all night, then you get a jump on the next day...well...because...it IS the next day.
There seems to be less yelling around our house. Amazing how patient I can be with two teenagers when I have a night's sleep under my belt. Curious how much more lucid I am in the work I do. The fog of my exhausted mind has strangely cleared. We have become reacquainted, my pillow and me. It is a lovely friendship. I am toying with the belief that God will allow me to take my pillow with me to Heaven.
Pride goeth before a fall. This includes falling over due to lack of sleep. You still have several days before Easter. Join me in taking up rest for your Lenten discipline. Then let the resurrection message spur you to embrace the gift of rest given by the God of love.
Joni
posted by Joni and Bob at 9:50 AM
1 Comments:
I must be more spiritual than the rest of you. Sleep seems to be the one spiritual discipline that comes easily for me. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean I have been able to sleep my pride away. Funny thing pride. It is a shape-shifter. Just when some humbling experience has eradicated it from one area of my life, I find a new source. The propensity for my spirit to fixate on itself is quite remarkable really.
My pillow and I are well acquainted; however, true rest often eludes me. For the spirit to rest, an outward gaze is required. Thank you for the reminder to find rest in the cross and an empty tomb.
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