Lessons From When I Should Have Been Sleeping

First off, quick programming announcement…The next Pop Culture Pastors Hour will be this coming Wednesday, October 22 at 1pm!

MaryAnn McKibben Dana

and I will be joined by

Troy Bronsink

to talk music. What songs are those that connect deeply in our lives and why music has such a beautiful influence on us. We may be starting with the Colbert Questionnaire question of “If you could only listen to one song the rest of your life, what would it be?” I think we were also inspired a bit by the latest Song Exploder postcast focusing on the 80s song by A-Ha, Take on Me. Join us for the live conversation or check it out posted later! We’re also going to do another the week following for Halloween on It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown!

Onto lessons learned from when I should have been sleeping…

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3:45am on Thursday morning. 11:15pm Thursday night. Two times when I should have been sleeping. Two times when lessons were learned.

3:45am

Let’s start with the morning. I am an early riser as it is but not quite like this. Woke up at around 3:45am and went out to our living room couch, followed closely by Scout. I made the mistake of checking one of my social media feeds and next thing I know, it is around 4:30am and I’ve gone through tons of posts on BlueSky and then moved over to Substack notes. Doomscrolling through one post after another. I could have played a meditation podcast to help get back to sleep. I could have done some breathing exercises. I could have just gently pet Scout curled up at my feet. But nope. Scroll, tap, read, scroll, tap, read...repeat.

And then came to this from someone the substack algorithm thought I needed to see (and I did).

My mental and emotional dialogue at that time was far from a continuing discourse with God, the source of all love. Instead it was the messes (and there are many) of the world right now and some of the many different takes on those messes populating social media.

Sarah K. Butterfield

’s post was a beautiful version of this moment from Moonstruck

It was beautiful and so needed. After reading that, I put the phone down and headed to the basement for a yoga flow to help reset my heart and head. And then a little while later here are some of the moments I was able to receive while walking Scout.

Fast forward....

11:15pm - Imago Scriptura Sports Edition

Now it is the opposite problem. Can’t get to sleep. Went to bed around 10:15 and just laid there awake getting more and more annoyed. So I got up and decided to see whether the thursday night game - Bengals and Steelers - was over. There was about 2 minutes left in the game and the Bengals had the ball down 31-30. I started to watch as the Bengals were driving and there was this play that pretty much sealed the deal.

Tee Higgins Slides At the Five (the NFL doesn’t allow embedding of youtube videos on substack… so click through for the video)

My first thought was for all of those fantasy football people (I used to be one of them so its pretty ingrained in me) and bettors who were counting on Tee Higgins to keep going into the endzone for a touchdown. But then my next thought was how that play says so much about what it means to be part of a team. Higgins could have kept going and gotten the touchdown for his stats (and eventual future contract) but in doing so, he would have opened the door for the Steelers to have a lot of time to try to win the game. Instead, by sliding down at the 5 yard line, he set his team up to run nearly all of the clock and for his team to kick a field goal to go ahead and leave only a handful of seconds left for the Steelers to try to win it (which they didn’t - happy Cincinnati residents this morning).

This play was a beautiful example of what it means to be part of a team, a community, a family. In those settings, it isn’t about firstly about individual glory or accomplishments but about what each can do to help the whole. This Sunday, I’m focusing on the story from Acts 6 in the New Testament about how the church responded to a group of women who were being neglected (intentionally or accidentally). Their repsonse is that they commission a group of people to be servants and sharers and not “up front people.” This response was about serving and sharing, reinforcing what had already been shown several times before this in Acts.

Here’s what it says in Acts 4:32-35:

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.

This is a far cry from much of what is heard from Christian circles today.

Sometimes we need to slide down at the 5 in order for the whole to succeed.

Thank you Tee Higgins.

Then once I did get to sleep, I slept great and was blessed by these moments on Friday morning.

I hope that this post has been a bit of a moment like what my first one was - a few moments of breaking into doomscrolling, anxiety, etc to help recenter and readjust.

And speaking of music,

Carrie Newcomer

has a song about moments like this:

Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed

PS - Scout got an autumn photo series Friday morning as well…