Wednesday, November 29, 2006

God's Love of Sleep

Charles PeguyAre you all familiar with Charles Péguy's poem about Sleep? It fits in well with Psalm 127:2; Micah 2:1; Ecclesiastes 5:12. This excerpt is from Péguy's The Portal of the Mystery of Hope.

And yet they tell me
That there are men who don't sleep.
I don't like the man who doesn't sleep, says God.
Sleep is the friend of man.
Sleep is the friend of God.
Sleep may be my most beautiful creation.
And I too rested on the seventh day.
He who's heart is pure, sleeps.
And he who sleeps has a pure heart.
This is the great secret to being as indefatigable as a child.
To have that strength in your legs that a child has.
Those new legs, those new souls.
And to start over every morning, always new,
Like the young, like the new
Hope. Yes, they tell me there are men
Who work well and who sleep poorly.
Who don't sleep.
What a lack of confidence in me.
It's almost worse than if they worked poorly but slept well.
Than if they worked but didn't sleep,
because sloth
Is no worse sin than anxiety
In fact, it's even a less serious sin than anxiety
And than despair and than a lack of confidence in me.
I'm not talking, says God, about those men
Who don't work and don't sleep.
Those men are sinners, it goes without saying...
I'm talking about those who work and who don't sleep.
I pity them. I hold it against them. A bit. SLEEP
They don't trust me.
As a child lays innocently in his mother's arms,
thus they do not lay.
Innocently in the arms of my Providence.
They have the courage to work.
They don't have the courage to do nothing.
They possess the virtue of work.
They don't possess the virtue of doing nothing.
Of relaxing. Of resting. Of sleeping.
Unhappy people, they don't know what's good.

1 Comments:

Blogger Peter Carey said...

I'm tired, and now I have a theological justification for taking a nap ... if I could just get these pesky teachers, supervisors, and bishops to get off my case!

zzzzzzzzzzzz

Thu Nov 30, 03:56:00 PM GMT-5  

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