Rest

(These are just some of my thoughts from a couple nights ago. I'm not sure if the conclusion is really tapping into the depth it's really trying to convey. It sounds very sentimental, and I'm not entirely sure how to wrap this up.)

It peeved me to think that he was going to be studying for another hour or so. It was already 1:30 am, and I had to rise that morning at six. My roommate still studied with his light on. Fortunately, he perceived that my stirring indicated that I was not yet asleep, so he turned off his lamp and went into the bathroom to study. “Ah, thank God,” I thought, "Now for some rest."

When I was younger, I had always dreamed about rest in my waking hours. I thought if I could fall asleep forever - with no death at my door or English paper due by the end of the week - that would be true rest. I used to sit in class and wait anxiously for the end of the period, so I could have rest. I realized, however, that as the sun in the desert disappears only to reappear, so was my school day. It would be the end of classes at 2:30 pm, but sunrise the next day was inevitable. So I could never get comfortable. Even on a broader scale, I realized that even when boring high school is over, there is boring college just over the horizon. After that, there is a boring job. After retirement, death? No, that’s not good. Let me sleep, because there’s no satisfaction in being awake.

It seemed though that even sleep had left me empty. Invariably, I'd wake up at noon on Saturday only to discover a third of my day of freedom was consumed by sleep. There is no real comfort in sleep. It only delays the coming of being awake, which as I’ve said already, is not satisfying. In fact, life is suffering, and death looms over us. We are plagued by thoughts of death, longing for rest from them.

My roommate entered the room again, walked over to the window and pulled the curtains open. A piercing yellow orb presently scowled at me from across the hill. It was a monstrosity of a lamp, burning with the glow of a thousand suns, flooding my room with light. In reality, it produced no more light than if I had set my cigarette lighter aflame on the window sill. But damn! It was bright to me.

At this point, I wished my face was rearranged like that strange kid from Family Guy. His entire facial features were turned upside down. If my face were like that, I could pull my covers up over my eyes, while my nose and mouth could be free to breathe above them. (I also realized that snorkeling would be easier with such an arrangement.) As it stood, with my face being normal and all, I couldn’t pull the covers over my head without feeling suffocated.

“Walter. Pull those drapes shut!” I thought to myself, “Please man, have mercy…oh, what’s this? You’re getting into bed? Without closing the drapes? Oh come on!”

“Four hours left until my alarm viciously grabs me by the throat and throttles me out of my unconsciousness,” I thought. “Life treats us this way,” I noticed. “In my estimation, School, work, family – the responsibilities of being awake in general – all demand of us unnecessary and copious amounts of attention. Maybe that’s an overstatement. Maybe school, work, and family are really as important as people say. I don’t really know. It’s too late. It just seems to me that my life revolves around simply surviving boredom. If I can survive the nine to five, I won the battle for that day. If I don’t go kookoo for Cocoa Puffs by the end of the week, I’ve won again, and my reward beckons me to the sofa. There I can kick off my shoes, grab a beer and some Doritos, and fall into a warm, soft, anodyne-drenched rest.

But what the hell are we even awake for? I guess that begs the question of why we are even alive. So maybe that’s really what I should be asking. Why am I alive? Why was I created? To exist, consume, sleep, and then get up and do it all over again?”

And of course the answer had to come to me at some point. It usually does. And every time, this answer reminds me of how truly base and selfish I am. I read a story of two eighty-year-old ladies who died in a car accident while in Columbia. They had served the people there for most of their adult life, living as only a missionary could live: Meagerly, yet rewardingly; in joy, yet with contrition; in hope of Heaven, yet concerning themselves also with the earthly needs of their friends in Columbia. Upon thinking of this, I furrowed my brows and wondered if anyone in America could truly be considered a follower of Christ.

“It seems to me,” I thought, “that we pay all too much attention to those passages referring to us being born again, yet ignore those that speak of selling all our possessions. Not that either passage cancels or trumps the other, but what is it with this Christian nation that sells us this boredom with life? It is so unbiblical that I can smell the heresy of it rotting me from the inside out. And yet, what can I truly do about it? It has been so ingrained in me, I don’t know where to start eradicating such thoughts.”

So I prayed a little prayer then and there, asking for forgiveness for wanting to sleep away a life that had been given to me to do something meaningful. And at that moment, I think I perceived an invisible hand moving across the window and shutting the curtains, finally putting me to sleep. It was probably Walter's. Nevertheless, I think that God still gives a blessing or two to the undeserving, perhaps further deepening the mystifying concept of grace to me. But don't let these reels of vomit fool you. If you want any wisdom, don't talk to me. Open up the Bible for yourself and see if what you need is in there.