Day 55: "Goodnight Moon"

DAY 55

Faith in the Midst of a Pandemic

A series of daily reflections for people of faith

by Rev. Robert Bayley, Interim Pastor

Patuxent Presbyterian Church, California, Maryland

WEEK EIGHT: FRIDAY 8 MAY 2020

Goodnight Moon

“Goodnight room … Goodnight moon … Goodnight light and red balloon …. Goodnight bears ... Goodnight chairs … Goodnight kittens and goodnight mittens … Goodnight clocks and goodnight socks … Goodnight comb and goodnight brush … Goodnight stars … Goodnight air … Goodnight noises everywhere …” - "Goodnight Moon", a popular preschool story book.

I loved reading to our children when they were small, and now to our three-year-old grandson, to whom I read every day, and also at night as he is in bed, his drowsy body sinking into his mattress as I read. Now temporarily removed by a six-hour drive, I read to him via FaceTime – every day. Sleep comes easily to him, absolutely unaware as he is of the trauma through which the larger world around him is passing.

Would that sleep comes as easily for the rest of us. My journey includes significant wrestling matches with insomnia - something, unfortunately, I have passed on to all three of our children. Disengaging when getting into bed has never been easy for me – the mind keeps working when the body is saying ‘enough already.’ Coronavirus confinement to our house and daily exposure to a constellation of historical happenings, the likes of which I have not observed in my lifetime, make midnight clock-watching a nocturnal pastime.  

So what is this children’s book teaching us? That there is a place for saying ‘goodnight’ to all of the things that surround us in the worlds of the seen and the unseen in our lives. Disengaging from the former is easier than letting go of the latter, for we take all that elicits fear, anger, sorrow, resentment to bed with us, in our minds.

"Goodnight Moon" may just be the book we need now. Jesus actually invites us to “… change and become like little children …” Matthew 18:3. Not childish, but child-like, like children for whom “Goodnight Moon” will work at face value if we will take it at face value during this pandemic.    

  

Reflective question: Will you make a ‘say goodnight to’ list and read it after you get in bed?

Reflective Scripture: Psalm 4:8 “I will lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, Lord, make me dwell in safety.”

Reflective hymn:

“Day is Done” – James Quinn (1919-2010)

Day is done, but love unfailing dwells ever here;

Shadows fall, but hope, prevailing, calms every fear.

God, our Maker, none forsaking, take our hearts, of love’s own making;

Watch our sleeping; guard our waking; be always near.