This morning I woke up and immediately thought to myself, “I need to write a blog about this”. The I immediately fell back to sleep.

What I was experiencing was that unbelievably wonderful 20 minutes of sleep-awake-sleep-awake-sleep-awake just before actually waking up for the day. You know that time when you alarm clock goes off, but you don’t have to get up right away, so you hit snooze again. Then you get to enjoy the sensation of laying your head back down on the pillow and drift back to sleep. You know, right before doing it again.

What I found interesting is the ideas that seem good in that stage of cognition. There’s virtually not much to write about the topic, at least not outside of a scientific study of some kind. Yet, for some reason it seemed like good blog material in between snooze alarms.

So, should I have written about it today? Well, probably not.

I just came across Jesus’ night in the garden before his crucifixion. I’ve read it a million times, but found a fresh point of relation to Jesus’ disciples. It’s a wonder I never saw it before.

Jesus had gone off to pray. He warned them to keep alert and pray that they would “fall into temptation”. But it doesn’t happen like that. Luke 22:45-46:

And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow, and he said to them, "Why are you sleeping? Rise and pray that you may not enter into temptation."

Anyone who has struggled with extended periods of emotional despair or depression knows that there is something inviting and releasing about sleep. Tons and tons of sleep. When I am in times like that I often find myself “sleeping for sorrow”.

But the temptations that accompany sadness are only puffed up by attempting to sleep away our problems.

Of course, like the disciples who know that they should stay awake and pray against their temptation, I too usually give into the easiest, most comfortable solution.

Sleep.

I’m a night owl.

My mother and father are night owls also. It’s not uncommon to find my parents awake at 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning watching TV, drinking tea, or working on a crossword puzzle. I don’t know, I guess it’s just the way my family has always done it and I’m no exception.

As much as I love the feeling of productivity in the morning hours, I think I find a lot more comfort in the privacy of night time. Everything is asleep and quiet and I have the chance to work on whatever is in front of me without the nagging distraction of all the other things I could be doing with my time.

Nonetheless, I still sometimes struggle with a feeling of guilt associated with staying up all night and sleeping through half the day. Regardless of the fact that I usually get a great deal of work done at night time, it’s like I’ve been programmed to feel compelled to work when everyone else does.

I’m pretty convinced these are bogus feelings.

So, on a night like tonight, filled with productivity, laughter, good friends and good times, I feel compelled to say, “screw you feelings—I’ll see you at noon.”