A Ramble About Fear and Sleeping Late

I've developed this bad habit of sleeping late. I generally wake up in the mornings around seven thirtyish to eight thirtyish. When I wake up, I'm generally wide awake enough to get up for the day. I know I am, and I know I probably should. But what generally happens is that I get up, use the bathroom, and then go crawl back into bed and try to go back to sleep for another hour or two.

I know when I do this I don't need the extra sleep. I get an average of about seven to eight hours of sleep a night. For someone my age that's more than enough. But the truth is that when I wake up in the mornings, I don't want to get out of bed. I lay there awake with my eyes closed and various muscles aching and complaining because they've been motionless for too long, and if I lay in one position for too long, my arms go to sleep and it's acutely uncomfortable. But I still don't want to actually leave my bed.

My bed is warm and comforting in the morning. It somehow seems safer then facing everything else that lay outside of it. The truth is that when I first wake up and I'm still in between consciousness and unconsciousness, I always want to choose being unconscious or at least semi-conscious. My dreams aren't all that great, but in those first few minutes of waking up, they somehow seem preferable to reality. The truth is, the more I've thought about it, is that I'm depressed to some degree and this is simply a symptom. The truth is that in my half-conscious state I'm afraid of returning to reality. It is fear which is driving me back to my pillow.

What am I so afraid of that my sub-conscious mind doesn't want to face? What is it about reality that scares me so much?

Fear is a powerful driving force, and we don't realize how badly it affects us. The truth is that all three core sinful desires: sensual pleasure, avarice, and self-esteem are driven by fear more than any other factor. Human beings suffering from the spiritual autism that we do are terribly insecure people. Sub-consciously we are terrified that our physical, psychological, and/or emotional needs will never be met. We are afraid that someone else will always be better than we are. We are afraid of failing, being seen as failures, or that we are already failures. In psychology this fits very neatly into Maslow's pyramid of needs.

Consider how many people strive to be wealthy, whether they achieve it or not, because they are afraid of not having enough. Consider the young woman who moves from lover to lover because she's terrified of being alone even if it means staying with a man who beats her. Consider the irrational behavior of a man who sleeps with woman after woman because he's afraid of not having his physical sex drive met, while at the same time being afraid of committing to a single woman. Fear so twists the mind's logic that trying to untangle it becomes a herculean task at least.

I have been blessed by God so much more than I deserve. I have seen Him time and again provide for my needs over and over again in miraculous ways and beyond my very limited human capacity. I of all people have absolutely no reason to be insecure or to fear that my needs somehow won't be met. But here I am, depressed, at least sub-consciously, and afraid of what the reality of today may hold for me.

As I thought about it, I think part of my depression stems from being let go from my previous employer. In the past two years, I have held positions as a substitute teacher and a direct care worker for kids in a couple of different youth ranch type facilities. These positions stressed me out no end. I have never been a people person, and working with emotionally troubled kids added a layer of stress which I wasn't prepared for. But I found something out about myself working both as a sub and as a direct care worker, I loved it. I loved working with the kids. As hard as it was for me, I loved doing it. I loved being there to counsel them, encourage them, love on them, and as much as I could be a father to kids who didn't have one or know what one was supposed to be. I don't know if I was ever any good at it, but I loved doing it, and I loved the kids that I worked with, even when they broke my nose with a head butt, or decked me with their right hook. I loved loving them. And now it's all gone, and I don't know if I'll ever be able to do that again.

I've always loved being able to counsel people, father them, pastor them, be there for when they needed a shoulder to cry on. It was the one thing I seemed to be able to do intuitively, long before I became a priest. I never understood the concept of professional distance because when your profession is compassion how can you cut yourself off from them? Compassion requires that you invest yourself in others more than may be comfortable, and sacrifice your own needs for theirs.

I think, more than anything else, waking up and knowing that I've been cut off from that is what makes me want to go back to bed. It's the fear of never being able to be in that position again that makes me want to retreat to my pillow.

As I write this, I know that it is not I who love anyone or show love to anyone, but God through me, and it always has been. It is His active Grace which works through me to reveal Jesus Christ in His love to others. As I've grown older, and I hope more mature in Him, I've learned more how to recognize His love for others through me and step aside and let Him do so. In the process I've also been knocked off me feet, figuratively speaking, by feeling how much He loves those people through me. It's powerful and overwhelming, and through His love for others I have come to understand His love for me and mine as well. It was a privilege to experience it and to share it and to be His conduit for it. And it is the loss of sharing this with the people who need it the most which depresses me. My family knows I love them, and that God loves them, and this is reinforced with us every day. But in our current position, I feel powerless to share that with those who are terrified of never being loved.

I am no Saint. My own sins are many and foul. It is only by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ that I have any hope of attaining our common goal of Union with Him. I know this and I get reminded daily of my own weaknesses when I climb back into bed. Further it is because of my own weaknesses that I am in this position. I am reminded of this as well, and do not deny it.

I suppose I am writing this particular ramble as a kind of confession. If you have been kind enough to follow it all the way through, then I thank you for hearing it and humbly ask that you remember me, a sinner, in your prayers. Thank you.