“We have forgotten the age-old fact that God speaks chiefly through dreams and visions.” Carl Jung

“Dreaming is, above all, a time when the unheard parts of ourselves are allowed to speak.” Deirdre Barrett

“…even certain renowned enemies of idleness were themselves great nappers. Winston Churchill, who abhorred laziness in other people, himself took a nap every afternoon. He defended his afternoon doze in practical terms as an absolute necessity: You must sleep sometime between lunch and dinner, and no halfway measures. Take off your clothes and get into bed. That’s what I always do. Don’t think you will be doing less work because you sleep during the day. That’s a foolish notion held by people who have no imagination. You will be able to accomplish more. You get two days in one—well, at least one and a half, I’m sure. When the war started, I had to sleep during the day because that was the only way I could cope with my responsibilities. …Edison claimed only to need three or four hours of sleep a night, but, as Stanley Coren reports, he napped a lot. A Croatian electrical engineer called Nikola Tesla who worked with him claimed of Edison: ‘Although he needs only four sleep hours a night, he needs two three-hour naps each day.’ …Isn’t it extraordinary that an activity which takes up so much of our lives is so often relegated to the realms of unimportance? We are based on dreams, they are at our centre. Listen to them. …There are many examples of the creative power of dreams: ‘Kubla Khan’ came to Coleridge in a dream, as did the tune for ‘Yesterday’ to Paul McCartney. The idea for Frankenstein revealed itself to the young Mary Shelley in a waking dream; Einstein said that a breakthrough in his theory of relativity had come to him in a dream; Descartes had a dream that set him on the path towards his whole philosophical system (he said it was ‘the most important affair’ of his life). Mendeleyev dreamt the Periodic Table after falling asleep at his desk. J. K. Rowling was staring out of the window on a train when the idea, plot and characters for Harry Potter came to her.” Tom Hodgkinson

“He gives to His beloved
even in his sleep.”
Psalm 127:2

“’A little sleep, a little slumber,
A little folding of the hands to rest’—
Your poverty will come in like a vagabond
And your need like an armed man.”
Proverbs 6:10-11

Moving From Head to Heart

• Can you reconcile the Psalm and the Proverb?
• Has your culture determined the value you give to sleep? …to work?
• Is fear of “slumber” preventing you from receiving what God “gives?”

Abba, I welcome your nighttime gifts.

For More: How To Be Idle by Tom Hodgkinson