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_{This painting in located in the Chapel of St. James.}

“Keep awake” - Matthew 24:42 (NRSVue)

During the pandemic I started going to bed at 9pm and waking up at 5am. It felt like catching up on an adult lifetime of little sleep. What a difference regular sleep for so many days made. I had been “Keeping Awake,” vigilant, catching up on reading, worrying about kids, finishing work, always saying yes, for decades, I didn’t recognize the weariness, until it passed. What a strange feeling to be rested.

Keep awake, or stay woke, as we might translate it today, is two-sided. Vigilance is important and even required if we take this passage and the world around us seriously. The world is dangerous and defaults us to a dangerous anxiety and despair.

And, yet we are made in these bodies. We are learning more and more about the limits of this flesh of ours to resist what this flesh needs: food, water, rest, and care. We are not brains wrapped in a flesh coat. Our flesh and minds are of a piece, integrated and needing of one another.

Keep awake to what you need. The time of vigilance is long, and we need you to remain with us and remain well. I feel different now that I sleep more. I’m more awake when I’m awake, and I am more aware of when I must stop, for the sake of this one body I get to have. In this season of waiting, give thanks for the body that is yours, with all of its limits and joys that you know only because of your flesh, and if you can, get some rest.

The Very Reverend Winnie Varghese
Dean