Wake Up! (part 1)

When I was in college, I used to hate sleep. I felt that sleep was unproductive, that it wasted a lot of time… I thought I could do more if I didn’t have to sleep. Further, I could not understand how anyone could stay in the bed for thirteen hours! The doctor recommends eight, I preferred six, but could function on four, but thirteen?… that was greedy to me!

When I was in seminary, my position on sleep changed. During those years, I felt that sleep was relaxing, and comforting, and a way to escape reality. If I was hungry and didn’t have food, I slept. If I was stressed or depressed and couldn’t find solace or motivation, I slept… I discovered during this period (though it doesn’t make logical sense) the more one slept, the more tired a person would become- which is how it is possible, both in sickness and in health, to sleep all day long.

As I reflect on the state of our race, I am finding that too many of our people are sleeping entirely too much. Sleeping is not just a physical act. It is also mental, spiritual, and even social and political. I think that many of us have been living off the hope of Martin Luther King, Jr.’s dream for too long and are in a coma-like/ dreamy state ourselves. More recently, many of us have overdosed on the Barack Obama kool-aid and are feeling the lethargic effect of too much sugar. We are asleep to the realities of society and are walking around unaware, uninformed, unconscious, and unconcerned. We no longer recognize injustice or inequality and won’t admit that years of mis-education have conditioned us to be unresponsive to surroundings that negatively affect us. We are distracted from the truth by the news media, religion, education, and entertainment; and as a result, too many of us remain ignorant to the inferior position we are in as a people and have even become co-conspirators in the maintenance of our low status.

The bottom line: Lies lured us off to sleep, only the truth will wake us up.

This song inspires me. Perhaps it will inspire you, too.