Wide Awake
I’ve always been a sleep-through-the-night person, much to the chagrin of my often-insomniac husband. I recognize how fortunate this makes me, and I say this with all gratitude and no pride, since I can’t explain why I am the way I am.
Barring seasons when my sleep was interrupted by our dog in his puppy potty-training stage, or certain early-morning jobs I’ve had over the years, when I lay my head down at night I usually don’t lift it again until around seven or eight in the morning, like clockwork.
It’s always been this way.
But this winter, I’ve noticed an interesting phenomenon. Some mornings, perhaps once a week, I wake up between four and five in the morning and find myself unable to get back to sleep. Wide awake in the dark.
It’s not an unpleasant feeling, either; it isn’t any anxiety or racing thoughts that clamor for my attention. Just an abrupt wakefulness, a silent bell tolling only for me.
The first few times this happened, I tried to fight it. I would roll over, attempt to get comfortable again, urge myself to slip back into sleep. But my efforts would only make me more fidgety and uncomfortable.
It’s time to get up, my brain would say, and would hear no argument.
And so, after my back-to-sleep tactics would regularly fail, I learned to go ahead and let myself get up and pad quietly into the dark kitchen, rising before the sun.
Matins
The hours before dawn are fascinating. The darkness is fragile, here, not the heavy cloak of midnight but something tentative. Waiting. Expectant. An inhale.
I have read that in some traditions of the early church, when every time of day was assigned a period of unique prayer, the hours before dawn were called Matins. Not the milky light of Lauds, not yet, but the still, small hours of waiting in the dark for hope spilling over the eastern horizon.
When I rise during this time, it always feels wrong to turn on the electric lamps, even the soft Christmas lights we use year-round in the living room. These hours are candlelight hours, vigil hours; it feels inappropriate, somehow, to disrespect them with any modern harshness. Instead, I light the forest green novena candle beside my writing chair, the beeswax taper on my desk, and a tealight in the kitchen so I can see to make my first cup of coffee. It’s just enough glow without shattering the calm, letting the darkness speak for itself.
The dog, who sticks to my heel like glue, rises with me. If he’s confused by such an early waking, he never says anything. Just finds a new place to resume his dozing—the living room couch, or his pile of blankets in my office—and lets me get on with it.
And what is “it”? I guess that depends.
Some mornings, it’s simply sitting with my coffee and inhaling the steam, sleepily considering the day ahead. Some mornings, I confess, it’s scrolling through my phone, taking a peek at what I missed overnight (especially here on Substack).
But sometimes, I am led to follow the mysterious spirit of Matins and sink into prayer, or a meditative contemplation that takes a few forms. I consider the week thus far in the flickering light of a novena candle, or explore the words of the mystics in a favorite devotional, or simply whisper the ancient verses of the psalter into the gloom of the house beyond the reach of the candles, silent except for the dog’s soft snoring.
Tiny Seasons
I often think that if we lived out all four seasons in miniature every twenty-four hours, Matins would be the “late winter” of the day. A sort of tiny January/February, too far from the threshold of spring’s dawn to see any signs, yet, but near enough to feel its approach, to yearn for it.
Cold, dark, but ready. Empty, open-handed, and very possible.
The people awake at this hour don’t stumble into it, I find. It is a deeply intentional time to be awake. Either Matins has pulled you from sleep for her mysterious purposes, or you rise with your own. To care for a loved one, perhaps, or to prepare for an early shift of work, or to maintain a habit like exercise or study.
Lonely? Perhaps. These can be lonely hours, depending on your point of view, just as winter can be a lonely season. But the loneliness of these shadowy periods of our lives—whether a few hours, a few days, weeks, months, years—comes hand in hand with a more intimate closeness with a God who sees perfectly in the dark.
Whatever the reason you find yourself in the arms of the pre-dawn hours, the winter of the day, God always finds us there, as if to prove that He can find us anywhere. There is no hour, no season too dark, too vast, too mysterious, too empty, too lonely, too needy, too cold for Him to seek and surround and hold us.
Matins is the womb of the day, just as winter is the womb of the year. In her darkness we are worked upon, cultivated, rooted in a strength beyond our mortal understanding. This way, when the light comes—as it always does—we find ourselves prepared to reach for it with open hands.
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You have a way with words! This is really something else. You put words to feelings that are familiar and yet when i try to say them back i cant find them. Your words will have to do. Thank you for this!
So beautifully said! My husband often rises before dawn to read before his work day begins. God did not make me a morning person, but I am often up late, especially when writing. I find a similar quiet when the household is bedded down and I am in my office with the dog asleep as my feet.
The day is so full that it is lovely just be BE in the quiet, whenever it happens.