Surrender

Yesterday I had a rough day. Staying up late the night before compulsively rereading Harry Potter 6 didn't help. I was depressed, sluggish, down. I didn't pray, I didn't get anything of much done. Just a couple of crits.

My attachments were in my way. All this time and I am no better at detachment than I was in high school. I suppose it's because I haven't tried, haven't focused on it. My desire for worldly things is strong. Just because most of them of are positive worldly things, friendship, belonging, intellectual stimulation, imagination, human interaction, I tend to think they're okay. That wanting those things, them not being evil, won't hurt me.

But if I want them to much, it leaves me in a state of anxiety and desire. My mind and spirit aren't willing the one thing, but the many, and I am destroying myself as surely as if I am desiring not so good things. They are still "feel good" drugs, just ones under the guise of acceptable, normal, or natural.

I, and I alone, can make this journey. There is no one but God who can walk it with me. Not even my friends who are dead, although they can walk it further than those surrounding me in life.

Yet at the moment the loneliness of it seems oppressive. Is there not one mystic who can take this interior journey with me? Do I not have one interior friend?

Who can see my soul? Who can know the depth of my heart? Jesus is my interior friend, the only one who can make the journey with me. Yet, the human part of me feels lonely, longs for companionship, wants, desires, with real strength, a solid other half, a solid person who will fill the void within.

No solid person can fill the void. I know this. But yesterday it didn't help.

All day I suffered, and then I went to bed. My mind was a wild thing, an untamed animal. I knew, after Tuesday what was necessary. Meditation would give me sleep. Yet, rightly, it felt like surrender. Despite the fact my thoughts were circular, mostly destructive, and not entertaining, I wanted them. I wanted to think, to ponder. I like thinking. And I didn't want to give them up for a "boring" mantra. I didn't want the droning repetitiveness of prayer. I didn't want to surrender.

And yet, I was so lost, tortured enough, that I did. And I slept.

I never thought of my sleep problem as a spiritual problem before, but at this point, I think it is. Part of me is skeptical that prayer that puts one to sleep "counts" but the other part of me figures, whatever "works" works. Perhaps my sleep problem is spiritual. Perhaps, I do not sleep because in general I won't surrender to it.

Sleep is like death. You release your thoughts, your mental and physical activity. You let everything go so that it can be restored. You surrender what you are doing, what you want to do, what you just did, and go into a sweet oblivion. It is not so different from prayer.

So do I not sleep because I do not pray? Perhaps. Perhaps the first step to God is to pray myself to sleep and restore my body. Perhaps surrendering to nature I will learn to surrender to God.

Although it does show me how very far from heaven I stand.

And somehow, becoming a mystic by sleeping just doesn't sound right. But it seems to be the camino set before me. All I can do is walk, and see what the camino brings. All I can ever do, should ever do, is walk.

Ultraya! Animo! Viva la Camino! Santiago, here I come.

Meditation and Sleep

Each day brings a gift.

I didn't sleep last night, the sort of night where my mind goes wild, and drags the rest of me with it. Circling thought about nothing in particular. While they aren't unpleasant they do impede sleep. I finally got up at 3:55 AM, tired of it. I was dragging this morning, and nothing seemed important, least of all mysticism.

I thought to myself, how do those mystic manage anything when they're tired? I did a crit, went to mass, and was hardly awake for any of it, knowing the second I lay down I'd be wide awake again.

So I decided to meditate.

I don't have much luck with meditation. Perhaps procrastinating on the whole mystic bit can partially be blamed on that… I mean, that's what mystics do. Meditate, contemplate. All I could do was fall asleep. I struggled with it for an entire year of centering on sleep instead of God, before giving up. It was horrible frustrating. (Sorry Lord, couldn't keep awake with you an hour, but I did try.)

I had no problem with the idea today. If sleep was the worst that could happen, that was more than fine with me. I suppose our perspective changes with age. I figured if the best I could do was sleep with God for half an hour or so, that was just peachy with me. So I gave it my best shot.

I was not disappointed. Mantra became dream, my brain still didn't shut up, but I knew I was pretty much asleep, because I wasn't conscious of directing my mind for most of it. When I could, I returned my focus, but mostly I slept. Even the mundane and dull nature of the dreams failed to arouse and disappointment. 45 min of sleep meditation seems worth five and half hours of insomnia in bed.

One of those mysteries of the universe I guess.

I for one, think I'll be "meditating" a bit more often these days.