Nights when I can’t sleep, thanks to a neighbor’s dog that keeps barking, I try not to get worried, knowing that I’d drop off towards morning. At times I would read, and choose history for the purpose. George Bernard Shaw said, “Hegel was right when he said that we learn from history that man can never learn anything from history.” Even just this quote can put one to sleep?
Or else I would watch TV, any of the late, late shows. That they’re shown in the wee hours does not make them any the more intelligent. Which makes me hope that they would knock me out in three minutes flat. But the blow of mercy does not always come. Sometimes, not often because of their inanity, the talk shows would inflame and turn sleep into an impossible dream.?
I admit that there were nights when I “counted sheep,” imagining them, white and identical, each a clone unto the other, as they jumped over a fence in an infinite series, and keeping a tally of every gambler, these words on my lips—one, two, three . . . Still it was a gamble, and no assurance of success?
Just this morning I came across a comment, which I thought had a bit of wisdom to it—“If you can’t sleep, don’t count sheep. Talk to the shepherd.”
Initially, I took the line as a clever quip, a rhetorical advice best ignored, because, if while counting make-believe sheep I likewise converse with the shepherd, my sleeplessness would degenerate into schizophrenia, and more than a snooze I would need professional help.
But then my attention was drawn to this passage from the Gospel of John, in which Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. A good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. A hired man, who is not a shepherd and whose sheep are not his own, sees a wolf coming and leaves the sheep and runs away, and the wolf catches and scatters them . . .”
And then he continued, “I am the good shepherd, and I know mine and mine know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I will lay down my life for the sheep.”
If it comes to that, here’s a shepherd I would like to have conversation with, I told myself. If God has willed that I should not sleep just yet, perhaps He wants me to be aware of His presence, to remember that He is the “unsleeping Lord” referred to in a hymn (“We Praise You, Father For Your Gifts”) in Compline:
Within your hands we rest secure;
In quiet sleep our strength renew;
Yet give your people hearts that wake;
In love to you, unsleeping Lord.
And so, on many an insomniac night, especially during a long illness, I would just lie in bed and talk to God—as though to a friend. I kept reciting and drew consolation from Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want… though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”
This was what St. Alphonsus Liguori said about prayer, “Acquire the habit of speaking to God as if you were alone with Him, familiarly and with confidence and love, as to the dearest and most loving of friends. Speak to Him often of your business, your plans, your troubles, your fears—of everything that concerns you. Converse with Him confidently and frankly; for God is not wont to speak to a soul that does not speak to Him.”
A neighbor’s dog keeps me awake all night. But now, instead of cursing—and feeding my sleeplessness with anger—I just pray to my Shepherd. The dog is probably just following the Lord’s instructions to keep me within his fold by constantly barking to remind me of the need to watch and pray.