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And Sleep will not lie down but walks

Wild-eyed and cries to time.

“Ballad of Reading Gaol.”

Oscar Wilde.

The fact that we confound rest and sleep makes us regard wakefulness as an evil. We go to bed to sleep, and, if sleep does not come at once, we begin to fret and to toss and we try by every means that we know to force ourselves to sleep. We never accomplish anything that way, because it is essentially opposed to the nature of sleep. Sleep, to be refreshing, must be complete relaxation of mind and body, and that is not gained by striving. Natural sleep is merely “letting go,” which is just what so many find hard to do. The course is so simple and plain that “the wayfaring man, though a fool, need not err therein,” but he often does err in spite of its simplicity; and sometimes, perhaps, even because of its simplicity.

Naaman, captain of the host of Syria, went to the Israelitish prophet, Elisha, to be cured of his leprosy. As he was a great man with his master, he expected some special ceremony done for him. Imagine his surprise and wrath when bidden to wash in the River Jordan.

At first Naaman went away in a rage; such advice ill-befitted his ideas of his needs. If it were enough that he should bathe in a river, why in Jordan? “Are not Abana and Pharpar, rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel?” Why not wash in them and be clean? And Naaman turned and went away.

But his servants questioned him and said: “Had the prophet bid thee do some great thing, wouldst thou not have done it? How much rather then when he saith to thee ‘wash and be clean’?” Then Naaman yielded and was made whole.

This story is a picture of our own ways. We despise the remedy that is simple, and we feel sure that, had it been some great thing, we should have found it easier to do. We are unwilling to accept simple, natural explanations of our difficulties. We feel so because we think so highly of ourselves. We forget that the greatest things are often the simplest, and, if the natural things are too hard for us to do, it is because we lack that true greatness which sees and welcomes directness.

If man understood his life better, he would cease to think of anything as an “accident” without a cause. He would know that nothing can occur to him that does not signify something to him in relation to his share in the plan of the Universe. He would understand that so simple a thing as whether or not he shall fall asleep as soon as he lies down to rest, or whether he shall find that “sleep has forsaken his eyes and slumber his eyelids,” may be an experience of great importance to him.

Every incident of life is subject to law; yet many of the most important functions of the body are performed without any consciousness of their relation and dependence one upon another: as, for instance, breathing upon the circulation of the blood, which in turn depends upon the heart’s pumping, and that upon the digestion, and that upon the food, and so on; the same is true of mental activities, and must be true of spiritual activities, for the same law runs through all of life. The wakefulness surely has some cause and some significance, else it had not been.

When something “goes wrong,” we are forced to look into our case, and note the relation of one state of mind or body to other states. It is then, if ever, that we learn which is cause and which is effect; how mistakes result in pain and pain warns us of mistakes, and how one necessarily follows the other. If it were not for the pain that follows the violation of some natural law, man might go on in his unwise course until he had altogether destroyed his physical body.

It is the pain from the burn on the tiny hand that warns the infant not again to touch what he is told is “hot.” If fire did not pain the body, we might be destroyed by flames without making any effort to escape. In fact, the chilliness and numbness of the African “sleeping sickness” often lead patients actually to burn off their hands or feet in the effort to get warm. It is quite possible that, if there were no pains in child-birth, women would bear children continually until they were themselves exhausted or their progeny overran one another. It is pain that tells us that a tooth is decayed, so that even toothache may be a blessing.

Therefore, if we are wise, instead of rebelling against pain, we should accept it gratefully as the helper and the possible preserver of our lives, and we should accept the wakefulness quietly as the sign of something that needs correction, or else as an opportunity for quiet thought and reflection.

When we have found what is wrong, and do our best to correct it, not only is the attention drawn from the pain to the remedy, but the effort to relieve it lessens the effect of the suffering.[5]