Insomnia--Advent's Distant Cousin

I wrote this four years ago but this morning I suddenly remembered it. I woke up long before the light of day and couldn’t go back to sleep. The clock on the microwave insisted I should still be in bed as it flashed 4:07 at me in the dark kitchen. I made myself a cup of coffee and sat quietly and I remembered this piece.

I had a rough night last night. I fell into a hard sleep but a short hour later, woke to Lowell’s moving and tossing, and then I couldn’t fall back to sleep. Using quiet whisper thoughts, I tiptoed around my brain, so as not to wake it…but to no avail. My brain is a light sleeper it would seem and it woke with a vengeance. It was demanding and incessant and loud. I couldn’t silence it and calm it back down for a long time.

I hate insomnia. I abhor those midnight hours when sleep avoids eye contact and we all just lay there awkward and fuming.

Last night my brain was a hodge podge of distractions, a collage of worries and niggling little anxieties. Earlier in the week Lowell and I had attended a meeting up at the high school on financial aid for our soon-to-be-college student. As gracious as the moderator was, my midnight mind kept imagining that he called us out for being so dim-witted all those years ago when Connor was first born. We should have started saving then! I could nearly see him rolling his eyes at us. I imagined him shrugging his shoulders, and dismissing any chances Connor has at a future, glaring at us, blaming us—Connor’s poor excuse for parents.

My brain also brought up Christmas—not the wonder and holiness of Jesus’ birth—but the frenetic pace of preparations. Gifts. Stockings. What to get Neil? Where to get Colleen’s gift? Who has Adelaide’s name? Baking. Food. Weight gain dread. Making up beds. Where would we sleep my parents? Where would we put my brother and his family? I stressed over and over on how to love my family well, how to be hospitable in the midst of the season’s crazy zone. I entertained booking everyone into hotels. I entertained booking only myself into a hotel.

I spent some time lamenting over Grand Jury decisions that no longer make any sense. Puzzling over the pain of it, the drama, the messy mixed messages of the media, the masked racism that continues–I wondered where healing would come from. I wondered what I can do to make a difference. I worried for my children growing up in this environment. I prayed pleading prayers for change and peace.

In the middle of it my brain thoughtfully reminded me where we were a year ago….in our beloved India, eating our favourite foods, seeing our favourite people. I found myself nearly choking on longing for that trip, that time, that experience. I wanted, desperately, to be there again. Tears rolled down my dark face in the dark night.

The insomniac brain suffers from attention deficit disorder. I bounced from anxious thought to despairing thought and back again.

This morning as I think about it, I’m struck with the similarities between insomnia and the advent season. Insomnia is the prolonged inability to sleep. On nights when I’m struck with sleeplessness I long for the morning to come. I want the night to be over! Advent too is a yearning— for justice, for hope, for mercy, for morning, for Jesus! I find myself responding to insomnia in different ways as I grow older. I used to do what many recommend. I’d get out of bed, go to a different room, read a book, drink a cup of chamomile tea. Now I usually just lie quietly and let my body rest. The same is true about my experience of Advent. I used to busy myself more to create meaning in the midst of the Advent longings and silences. I’d distract myself with activity. Now I’m trying to resist the rushing. I’ve found that busy air blows out the candles; worry winds tend to snuff out feeble flames of hope. I’m trying to sit still through the agonies and heart aches, to lie there and rest, waiting, breathing, holding steady.

The advent wreath still contains four candles encircling the white and glorious Christ Candle. But this year the wreath is surrounded by protests and angry crowds and Grand Juries and heart ache. Ebola deaths are rising in Western Africa. Refugees are still fleeing from Syria and Northern Iraq. It seems that this year the longings are deeper, the confusion and disillusionment are thicker. We toss and turn. We kick and squirm. When will the morning come? When will the long night of waiting be over?

The first candle in the wreath is lit. It’s the candle of hope and expectation. Some celebrate it as the candle of prophecy and promise. Either way, we’re holding on to what we know with hope and expectation. We’re keeping our hearts focused on what we’ve been told. Because of God’s tender mercy, the morning light from heaven is about to break upon us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death and to guide us to the path of peace. (Luke 1:78-79)

We couldn’t be more sure of what we saw and heard—God’s glory, God’s voice. The prophetic Word was confirmed to us. You’ll do well to keep focusing on it. It’s the one light you have in a dark time as you wait for daybreak and the rising of the Morning Star in your hearts. The promises… are like a lamp shining in a dark place—until the Day dawns, and Christ the Morning Star shines in your hearts. (2 Peter 1:19-20)

Please Jesus come….quickly. We’re ready for the night to be over. The darkness is growing wearisome. We’re eager for morning. We’re hungry for breakfast. We long for the day!

*originally published at Communicating Across Boundaries in December 2014

The Gifts of Loneliness

(This article was originally posted in “Fridays with Robynn” on August 31, 2012 at Communicating Across Boundaries.)

Over the years I’ve been graced with some very precious friends. This past summer I said good-bye to two of them. One is a friend with whom I share a great deal of history. We’ve been through deep suffering together. We’ve laughed a lot and cried even more over the years. The other is a newer friend but we’ve walked miles together and logged many conversations of significance.

Both are good friends. And I miss them.

Saying goodbye again reminds me of the sting of loneliness. As everyone has, I’ve endured seasons of deep loneliness. I’ve felt misunderstood, empty, alone. I used to dread loneliness. It felt dark and claustrophobic. I felt isolated. I felt sadness and pain. I hated loneliness. But lately I’ve come to recognize Loneliness as a generous benefactor. Loneliness greets me in the morning with strange and unusual mercies. She lingers in the afternoon and sits with me on the sofa and she offers me presents.

Loneliness comforts me with the reality that she cannot destroy me. I live on, even in her company. That’s reassuring—because I used to feel that she would be my undoing, my destruction, my soul’s demise. Now I know differently.

Loneliness is a type of suffering and suffering has the capacity to transform me. It produces character. It gives way to endurance. It yields to faith. Those are sweet and generous gifts.

Loneliness highlights my need. She gives me my emptiness. This is a good thing. I recognize my empty spaces and I have the opportunity to turn to God with my soul in my hands, my heart on my sleeve. This helps me see that God can really be my True Soul Friend. I can experience His Presence. Loneliness gave me that.

She gives me my humanity. She connects me to millions of others around the globe who are displaced, afraid, betrayed, abandoned. Loneliness whispers, “see you are not alone”. The pain that she brings also reminds me that I’m still alive. And I’m more fully human for having encountered her.

Loneliness shows me her ability to diminish when I take my eyes off her. She gets smaller in stature when I don’t focus or fixate on her. Conversely she grows enormous and ominous when I stare at her, when I dote on her, when I nurse her with my self-pity. She’s magical that way. That’s another of her mysterious gifts.

Perhaps the sweetest thing of all that Loneliness gives is the opportunity to receive random moments of connection with others as gifts in themselves. I can receive a deep conversation in the church lobby. I can enjoy a joke with a stranger in the grocery store. I can marvel at the various people God has given me –a kindly neighbor, a faithful postman, a humorous barista–and I can receive them with thanks. I don’t have to demand from them a forced friendship, a deeper commitment. I can walk away and be grateful for the moment of connection, the sacred spot of community. Loneliness gave me that.

I’ve just said goodbye, with sobs and tears, to my friend Ellen. She’s returning to India. And I’m staying on here. I’ve bid Ellen farewell and in the same space, filling the same place she leaves– Loneliness steps in. I also just said goodbye to Jill. Jill’s moving to a place I’ve never even visited. She’s going on new adventures without me. I’ve said farewell to Jill too and Loneliness swoops in. I’d rather Ellen and Jill had stayed. But I’ve learned to not resist Loneliness.

Thank you Loneliness. You’ve been almost kind to me.