Souls of the Night

As evening fell last night, about 7 pm, I found myself on the couch barely able to keep my eyes open.  Nothing too surprising about that as I had woke up at about 3:30 am yesterday morning, had put in a relatively full day in my shop and working on the computer, AND, 8 pm has been my normal bedtime for a while now as I'm required to get up at 4 am to commute to my new job.  So, a little drowsiness in the evening is to be expected, right?

And then it dawned on me.  Which pills did I take at supper?  Yup.  Turns out that when you take your evening medications at 6 pm, which include four different pills all of which have a side affect of making you drowsy, you are simply not going to be the life of the party for long.  Surrender.  Go to bed.  Either that or be prepared to sleep where ever you fall.

The downside of that is waking up at 1:30 in the morning.  Its now 3 am and I've already completed an estimate for a commission.  An aside:  I've been asked to bid a wine cellar.  The capacity of it, when all the racks are built, is 1,413 bottles of wine.  It probably is a good sign for my own recovery that I can now stand in such a wine cellar, and be unmoved by the vast quantity of 'the good stuff'.  I built their cellar in their current home, and now have been asked to duplicate it in their new home.  Lots of wine.  I'm thinking its a good thing though, that this is a wine cellar and not a Scotch cellar.  I'm thinking that if you had a Scotch cellar with 1,500 or so bottles of single malt, you might just be able to get intoxicated from the air in the room -- but that's just me.  Thankfully, I feel quite secure in my sobriety (1,155 days and counting) and can contemplate doing this.  However, the alcoholic in me thinks "Imagine it.  1,500 bottles of Scotch, a lazy boy, and a few good cigars.  You'd be set for a long hard winter."

Back to the reality.  I sit in silence.  I listen to the night.  I contemplate.  I wonder how much of my life has been lived under the veil of darkness.  I used to stay up late, during my drinking days this meant at times till 1 or 2 in the morning, until the Scotch had finally taken it's toll, and I could sleep.  After going through treatment and now as I live in sobriety, the cycle has shifted.  Early to bed, and then I wake in the middle of the night.

Random thoughts.  I preached about heaven a few weeks ago.  Isaiah's vision of the peaceable Kingdom was of the lion laying down with the lamb.  A reconciled creation.  And all the nations of the world will march into the new Jerusalem.  Reconciliation, not retribution.  Why is that so hard to fathom?  The gates will never be closed by day, and there will be no night.  What a welcoming place.  The ultimate open door policy.  And yet I'm struck by how many Christians are convinced that this will be an exclusive club, more about who cannot enter, than who can.  

I hear the dog stirring.  She sleeps in the kennel just to the left of my desk as I write.  A companion in the night.  I think about such faithful companionship.  A sign of the grace of God that we would be blessed with a creature so equipped to offer unconditional love without fail.

Sleep.  Illusive.  Its been a long time since I've had a non-drug induced night's sleep.  A long time. Maybe 1998, or so.  Before that I walked late into the night till exhaustion set in.

I think about my family.  We're at that wonderful time when our children are beginning to find their life partners.  We're expecting our first grandchild.  I remember one mother who prayed for the well being of her future son and daughters in law from the day her own children were born.

During the course of my ministry I sat vigil throughout the night on a number of occasions.  It was Holy Time.  Often it was during the last hours of the life of one of the souls in my care.  Sacred space.  Sacred time.  At such times the silence of the darkness is like the pregnant pause as the orchestral conductor raises his baton just prior to offering the downbeat.  You know that the heavenly chorus is ready to break into song, but just not yet.

In Jewish time, the day begins at sundown.  Light is a gift.  We move from the darkness into the light.  It is fundamentally a hopeful posture.

Darkness is often seen as the foe to be overcome.  We seek to avoid it.  Light is good, darkness is evil.  Its a primal fear within us that must kindle a fire to drive the darkness away.  Much the same thing for silence.  We fear it.

When I read the first Creation story, I'm struck that the first act of Creation is "Let there be light."  Yet I want to step back one eternal moment and imagine.  God sitting silent in the darkness, brooding over the face of the deep, and conjuring up the images of Creation.  I know that the Orthodox speak of the uncreated light of God that has always surrounded his Being.  And yet, the image of God, embracing the night, and reflecting on the vast variety of images that would be the Creation rings true to me.  There in the night he conceived the image of a platypus.  An orangutan.
There in the silence God envisioned the dolphin's graceful swimming.  The flight of the eagle.  The delightful dance of a young deer.

Its 4:30 am now.  I contemplate whether I should make the couch my residence for the next few hours.  Perhaps, I will rest.  Or I could go out into the shop and work a few hours.  I'm assembling some chairs for a client in San Jose.  I debate whether the sound of my work would interrupt those who do sleep through the night in my house.  The power screw driver has an irritating noise as it impacts the screw.  No, I will not violate the silence of this night.  I will lay down.

And bid adieu to the souls of the night as I wait for dawn's first light.