Harvest Falls Asleep

Ready for Train Ride Day

We have now had two happy sleepovers with our youngest grandbaby, Harvest.  He's not a baby though, and he'd tell you so.  He'd hold up three fingers (with the ring finger held down by the thumb) and inform you that very soon he'll be four, in fact.

But up until now he's been young enough to make times away from Momma and Papa, especially overnight, a little too sad.  I am thoroughly thrilled that those days are behind us.

Putting Harvest to bed is a nuanced art form, as his Momma and Papa would tell you.  He takes a passive resistance stance against falling asleep, not miserable, but not easily giving in either.  And because I'm the Gramma and because we want sleepovers at Gramma's house to be relatively freak-out free, I read a scandalous amount of bedtime books to my little guy.

My strategy is deeply subversive.  Choose books with calming themes.  Gradually turn out more and more lights around us.  Make my voice slower and more droning with each turn of the page.  It works.  Though deeply committed to staying awake, eventually even this little hard-core resister begins to droop, eyes glazing, head lolling. 

There's always a pillow nearby of course, and every once in a while I might suggest, "Harvest buddy, it might feel good just to put your head down on this pillow here."  "No thank you Gramma", he politely refuses.  I marvel at his tenacity to remain in an upright position, and continue reading.

And then, at the end of one last book, I just stopped.  Didn't offer the next one.  We just sat quietly for a brief moment.  And then Harvest said, "Gramma, I think I'll just put my head down on this pillow here."  Which he did.  And he was gone.

Why is it that by the time no one makes us go to bed early, it's all we want to do?    Seems totally crazy to me, watching my little guy refuse this good gift of sleep until he literally can't hold off any more.

And I wonder if God doesn't feel exactly the same way about me sometimes.  "Ruth Anne, it might feel good to just put you head down on this pillow called Sabbath I designed for you here."  "No thank you," I politely refuse and remain in the upright position of going about as a human doing instead of a human being.

At least, I used to.

One of the observations that came out of my annual journal-read-through at the cottage this year was how fully I have now embraced the practice of rhythms.  Daily, weekly, seasonally and annually, my practices of coming away for awhile, of stopping the work in order to play, or rest or listen, have become expected, entrenched, etched into my living in life-saving ways.

Not perfectly, but oh so much more easily and willingly.  I was once a passive resister like Harvest.  But funny how with age, workaholism can be a self-correcting dysfunction.  By now I get too tired, and have suffered enough of the consequences to work like a maniac any more.

And it's just feels so good to lay my head down.

"Because there were so many people come and going 

hat they didn't even have time to eat, 

Jesus said to his disciples, 

'Come away with me by yourselves for a while and get some rest.'" 

Mark 6:31