When I Wake Up

(Hey, I actually wrote this post a few weeks ago but then I deleted it a bit after I wrote it for some dumb reason. I just realized it was still on my "flog blog" on Facebook so I retrieved it from there. All is well again.)

Hi again friends. I'm fadin' out a bit here and that's a very good thing. I can't tell what a pain it has been lately to try to change my sleep schedule from total vampire (4am-1pm) to normal (12am-9am). I thought I had it and then I got all screwed up again. last night I slept through my alarm clock going off right next to me--all three levels of increasing frequency of beeps! It really screwed up some plans.

Can I just tell you that I am one horrible sleeper? I have NEVER as long as I can remember had a regular, consistent, healthy sleep schedule or the dietary equivalent. this has got to stop! but the eating thing, oh an that's tough here. i mean shopping for food is a pain. I'm getting, like, NO fresh vegetable from my current restaurant diet, so I gotta do something.

Anyways, what was on my mind was that moment when I wake up. Like many of you probably, I wake up and immediately go into some thought process, usually not important. Sometimes I'm just continuing from where i left off before I managed to slip through the cracks of my thoughts into sleep.

What I want to do is this: as soon as I realize I'm awake, immediately say a prayer, maybe this particular morning prayer I have memorized, and keep saying it until it's the first conscious thing I did of the day. The words of the prayer were the first words in my mind that day. the prayer was my first thought and my first action.

Being willing to do this and actually doing it would have a powerful affect on me I think. When I wake up and immediately grab hold of some thought about my life and things of the world that means I can't bear not to be attached to those things. it means I'm afraid to fall into Baha'u'llah's arms before I take a look down there to see where I'll be falling. It means I'm thinking about it, assessing it, making sure it's the thing I want to do, comparing it with other things. It means I'm doubting. It means I'm distracted and preoccupied. It means I don't really want to be with God.

All of this meaning just from not making prayer the very first thing I do? It's because that moment of decision lies right there at the beginning. Waking up is like being born in a way. It's coming out of nothingness or another life or something, coming out of a separation. In that first moment, before I have time to calculate and give myself the same old tired reasons why I do the things I do, why I continue on with my life as it is, I have a chance to just grab onto the cord of love and reliance and nothingness before God! If I grab on then and take firm hold and pray more and read the Word more and meditate more, maybe I'll be able to hold onto that cord all day!

I'm just asking myself these days: how much more do I have to suffer, how much more of this am I going to put myself through before I give up? I mean, there's no way I'm going back to oblivion and forgetting God, so until I really make my life all about Him I'm just stuck here in this limbo. I feel like I just need to make some leap inside me somewhere, my heart has to jump off a cliff with clouds below it. Attachment to things that never fail to bear worthless, worthless fruits! Subtle doubts and inertia that isn't always conscious holding me back, keeping my heart in this grey fog of nowhere. I, me, mine. All the attachments, all the opinions, all the desires, all the passing lusts, all the worries and anxieties, all the cravings and urges and habits and all that stuff. All of it! It's all BALONEY! I AM JUST SO SICK OF IT ALL!

I've got to pursue every opportunity to draw nearer to God, to feel His presence, to be animated by Him, and filled with His spirit. More than ever before, I find it the only thing that can give me any rest or happiness. All else is utter misery. I don't fear that darkness though, because i know I can put it behind me forever! Say a prayer for me please! That I will finally get over that hill that has been in my view for years and years! On the other side is a golden valley filled with fruits that will give me the ability to truly serve others and will fill my heart with peace!

I'm 32 years old and I have the opportunity to start my true life now! if I don't do it now I feel I may never do it. I really do. This time is very important to me. i have to transform my life. if I don't it really might never happen, or it might be another 10 years. If you ever will pray for me, please pray for me now!