Archive for July 8th, 2009

it’s nice to be reminded and to celebrate these small things. this day won’t happen again for another millennium!

(makes me kinda wish that i didn’t spend most of it just trying to feel better.)

but still… *hugs self* i love that i’m alive today.

despite my reputation for being an insomniac, and a person who “thrives on stress,” i’ve actually been putting in a  decent number of sleeping hours a night now. and it shows on my face, my temper (it’s better), and my outlook in life. it’s easier to get up early for work now, but unfortunately, i have yet to learn to sleep and still meet my deadlines… well, one thing at a time, eh? he he

I read in A Slice of Infinity about the Christian Vision Project wherein questions were raised as to how Christians can be counterculture for the common good. While the answers ranged from from becoming our own fiercest critics to experiencing life at the margins, from choosing wisely what to overlook and what to belabor to packing up and moving into the city. But there was one answer that stood out,

Author Lauren Winner, in her book Books & Culture, proposed: More sleep. She quickly admitted the curious nature of her retort. “Surely one could come up with something more other-directed, more sacrificial, less self-serving,” she wrote. Still, she carefully reasoned through the forces of culture that insist we give up an hour of sleep here, or two hours there–the grinding schedules, the unnerving stock piles of e-mail in need of responses, the early-taught/early-learned push for more and more productivity. Thus, Winner concluded, “It’s not just that a countercultural embrace of sleep bears witness to values higher than ‘the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desire for other things.’ A night of good sleep–a week, or month, or year of good sleep–also testifies to the basic Christian story of Creation. We are creatures, with bodies that are finite and contingent.” We are also bodies living within a culture generally terrified of aging, uncomfortable with death, and desperate for our accomplishments to distract us. “The unarguable demands that our bodies make for sleep are a good reminder that we are mere creatures,” Winner concludes. “[I]t is God and God alone who ‘neither slumbers nor sleeps.’”

This reminder was the final argument on whether Stef should get more sleep or not. I guess I’ve made time for everything else in my life, I should make time for rest too right? Sleeping has also taught me to make the most of my day, to wake up early to get things done early, so I can have more time to do the things I used to stay up late for (like read, and do my other articles, and hangout with my family, friends and myManu).

i guess it all boiled down to being confronted with the promise I made to myself and God at the start of 2008– and that’s not to worry, because I know that He’s in control. Good sleep is actually one of the biggest signs of a worry-free life. We can only do so much, but we can rest in the knowledge that our God can and does go beyond our limitations. I’m not saying that faith is an excuse to slack off, remember, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” (Galatians 6:7).

But sleeping as an act of faith, who would’ve thought it?