Sleep & the Deathbed- 5th August 1991

THERE has been many a fable concerning a sleeping princess who has visitation or is carried off afar without recollection whilst asleep. 

How true it is that man ignores the precious sleeping hours- in most cases does grudgingly bear the necessity to rest. Upon waking, those 'lost' minutes and hours are completely accepted as being lost to a consciousness that has purportedly shutdown. Interestingly enough, there is not one function, one mite of the biological system that shuts down in rest. Nothing ceases; emissions and transactions may alter but not one part of the body stops to resume in the morning.

For the busy person who is actively motivated, sleep is ignored and if can be, postponed until fatigue calls. Usually there is little discipline and less regard with educated gratefulness, for that condition which sustains the activity throughout the busy day. For some who suffer pain, whether bodily or tortured mind, sleep is welcome but haphazard; and for those who yearn with desperation, such sweet consolation is longed for and appreciated.

Then of course, there are those who do anguish at the troublesome images which the quiet moments score on an unsettled mind - nightmares galloping in, disrupting the retiring solitude with associated distaste for rest, making them nervous in times of repose.

Usually an individual will make preparations for his day but consider little preparations for his sleep throughout the night. Certainly folk may straighten sheets or take a nightcap, but this is not the preparation to which we refer. 

If one were to know that there should not be a waking from the night, what would be the considerations then? This does not mean to say that one stays awake half the night to win more time, for the quality of moments spent under the duress of fatigue are valueless in the extreme. But rather to consult sleep as one would consult the last moments of a life, approaching the portals of death.

Therefore, one would not take to the deathbed a novel of crime mystery; or would you? One would not take the worries of tomorrow, but rather reflect on the life that has summoned this moment in total. The nature of the contemplation should in fact be sober, if chosen well - sober as in sobriety of both body and attitude. One should wish for themselves, as well as for others, that the pictures before the inner vision were taken to be full of prayerful, inspired contrasts. That the petty concerns, especially distractions and persuasions of unhappy pursuits (arguments and anger etc.) be abandoned, and that the last moments should not be wasted in upset - rather somber and sweet preparation for such passing.

Indeed, the surroundings that are conducive to said deathbed would needs be delightful in scent, color and cleanness. It would be unusual or simply of bad taste, to decorate such room as though a gaudy party was ready to commence. So the bedroom must especially be that place which is especial to a heavenly journey, made quite beautiful this temple of rest.

One may not cheat sleep. Pity the demands which are so laid out by necessity in the day of the alarm clock. If one were to gather hours of rest as required and then wake naturally in rhythms predicted by their inner clocks, they should find the happy balance of daily activity and required restoration.

However, to many this is a luxury today. Firstly, when slumber calls they hesitate and tend to every other matter, trying to push her aside for moments longer than should be. Ideally if one begins to tire at night, one should immediately make for the bedroom. And if possible, were one to gauge the hour in which this usually occurs, it is preferable to be in place, in bed, before such tiredness demands them be so. This affords the quiet contemplative devotions which are especial to the end of the day's activities. One would hope that the alarm clock might be pre-empted by proper preceding, depending of course on the desired hour of waking.

If one could measure a man's days by quantitative exertion, one should find that the rested man has more to spend than the overextended individual who is semi-fatigued throughout his lengthy day. If one persists in denying the need for sleep, one does but injure the faculties and their perceptions.

For in earthly existence we are given the grace of returning home to the Father in soul for our evening meal, as it were. A meal whereby the soul is so nourished and then sent back on its way revivified, to begin a new day. So many folk are concerned with particular diets, but not of that nourishment which does truly imbue us with the vitalities that enable us to stay awake in the first place.

One would never consider depriving an infant of sleep; to go to the cradle and shake the child awake! Nor would one venture into a hospital with tambourine and drum-kit, and imagine it curative - although there is much too much interruption given with equally disastrous conditions endured by the sick in institutions today.

Returning to the death scenario, one would not put the radio on loudly at the ear of the near departed, nor flash lights in eyes or place extraordinarily sweet or savory foods down throat. We would not encourage their last earthly moments to be infilled with intoxicated stupor, and thus enter Heaven with imposed imbecility. This would not be our choice. And so we must take special care with ourselves in kindly manner, respectful to spirit within. 

Adulthood is not an occasion to make merry, and if so chosen to be so at least one may desist from the labors of merriment for a time before sleep, and prepare to draw into oneself in full those very essences which enable us to carry out all labors daily.

If you go to pick flowers you do not pluck them from the root. Should you work the beast to exhaustion repeatedly, you will have no beast to work for you. A fine meal does not mean a large meal, so large that your stomach may not accommodate the remains. A fine day is not to be measured by the minute, and a fine life requires the tonic of sleep, which as elixir of life nothing else may supply.

There are appropriate times for everything which constitutes the rhythms in which we operate in. It does us good to observe those times which are more pertinent to various activities and apply ourselves accordingly. To shift between limitations with objectives that stretch the perimeters of our suitabilities and abilities, weakens rather than strengthens that which we desire to be capable of. Intensity requires flex, and tension requires relaxation.

Moreover, we do answer all heavenly impulses firstly and make good of the life which is emanated therefrom. Our attitudes to sleep should be in grateful welcoming for such special episodes. Too often we misjudge our greatest friends and treat them very badly. If the Angel of slumber arrives, do not make her wait and offend her so. . . for in her cloak is concealed the properties which make up the new day ahead, which should you hurriedly take from her, some will assuredly be missed never to be offered twice over.

One day she shall call, bearing not the day's requirements; and it does well to receive her passage forth in full preparation, so gathered that you might detail with much account just how you have used her precious gifts for the waking day that you have been past afforded.