Message #20144

[Shannon]

I often meditate before bed after the kids are in theirs - when I am less likely to be interrupted.  By that time, my body is tired!  Often I am sleepy.  I find it helps to shower first - a shower is invigorating, and staves off sleepiness a bit.  I also like the ritual of getting 'clean' - almost as if for a date, or special event.  I sit with my hair wet, but my body relaxed and put in my twenty or thirty minutes.  Often my back hurts, even after all these years, becuse my posture is awful; too much time spent in front of computers! But I try not to think about that and do my best.  My meditation space is beautiful, and private.  It helps SO much to have a little corner set aside just for that.  Years ago, the only place I had in our home was an extra bathroom nobody used.  I had my meditation space set up in the bathtub!  it was perfect.  Ha ha.  These days I use a corner in my bedroom, but it is lovely and set-aside - there is nothing to do in that space but that which it is meant for.  After, I go to bed - but even in bed, I continue the meditation and drift off to sleep communing with God.  The older I get, the more I realize we have to be kind to ourselves and do our best.  Maybe God would prefer I spend an hour with an erect spine, sitting in lotus position!  But, I am sure He is pleased by whatever I do, as long as I do something.  Nodding off is a problem, but falling asleep with God is also a very good thing to do.  No?  We cannot all be monks! 

Loving Him is Like That

Have you ever slept next to an ocean -
Felt the breatheless awe
of unending space
So close to your beating heart?

Loving Him is like that -

Waking, soaring with gulls
Knowing the day will be special
For having slept near something so

Vast
Rhymthic
Comforing

And beautifully unfathomable.

<3