snoringSleep is one thing that will never go out of style. When you were a baby you slept a lot. When you were growing up Mom sent you off to bed early at night. As an adult your aim was to snag at least eight hours of sleep nightly. Nothing like waking up the next morning fresh and bright from a good night's restful sleep.
Some of us sink right into sleep the moment our heads touch the pillow. Some turn and toss in bed but cannot sleep a wink. Their problem is either physical, mental or medical. They try sleeping pills, herbal medicine or Chinese accupuncture. Some try counting sheep. Some talk to the Shepherd. In any case, sleep either enfolds them or eludes them. In the good old days, legends told of heavy sleepers who fell sleep under some kind of magic or enchantment.
Rip Van Winkle was a happy-go-lucky, henpecked husband. One day he climbed the Kaatskills Mountains and came upon some elves playing ninepins. He found flasks lyimg on theground in which the elves filled with some kind of brew. He took a sip too many from the flasks and fell asleep immediately. He slept for twenty years. When he woke up, he found himself alone. He decided to return home. He found a lot of changes in his neighborhood. The old neighorhood was not the place he left when he went up the mountain. None of his old friends were around. The people he met and saw were strangers.
Then there was the lovely princess, put to sleep by an enchantment thrown at her by a vengeful uninvited guest. She slept a hundred years. She was known as The Sleeping Beauty.
Epimenides, a Greek poet, fell asleep in a cave when he was a boy. He woke up 57 years later, possessed of all wisdom in the world . His tale is known in story as The Sleeper.
Finally, there are the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, seven Christian youths in the time of the pagan Roman Emperor Diocletian. To escape the Roman persecution of Christians, the Seven hid inside a cave and went to sleep. They snoozed, perhaps even snored, for 200 years. When they woke up Theodosius II was Emperor of Rome. Their world had changed. Rome had become Christian during the reign of Emperor Constantine. Christianity was now revered not hated nor detested.
It would seem the sleepers only took an beauty nap. Sleeping Beauty and the Seven Sleepers awakened with their youth still intact. They slept until their slumber was disturbed by a Prince Charming in the case of Sleeping Beauty, or because simply, it was time for them to get up as with the Seve Sleepers of Ephesus. Rip Van Winkle fell asleep in the prime of his life and woke up still in hs prime; sleep overtook Epimenides the Poet when he was a boy and woke up 57 years later a man.
To sleep deep and heavy like Rip Van Winkle, or Sleeping Beauty, or Epimenides, or any one of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, that is the the dream (pardon the play on words) of sleep-deprived insomniacs. A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest (Proverbs 24:33-34). That would be heaven sent.
