I have made a friend of insomnia. For most of my life, I regarded those frequent times of sleeplessness as a pesky nuisance. I was wired up to operate at turbo-charged speed. But sometimes I would get so energized I couldn’t rest. As I’ve grown older, I’ve learned to use insomnia as a learning tool. This is partly due to the emergence of 24-hour, cable television. Now, instead of tossing and turning restlessly, I tune in and watch stuff of interest to me that I missed when it first aired in primetime. And I learn a lot about myself. For example, last Sunday I followed the pattern I have developed over 45 years as a minister. I preached to a congregation—gave it my best. Then, after lunch, I sat down in my recliner chair and promptly took a nap. Later, at bedtime, my mind came awake in a replay of the day’s events. Especially that sermon. I rethought every word. Was it the right word? Did I miss the mark? Was it a timely theme? Did it stimulate the minds and hearts of the hearers? By about midnight and wide-eyed as an owl, I just go ahead, get up, and turn on the tube. I surf the channels and settle on something that interests me and shazam! I’m back in school again.

     I have learned a lot about myself in these late-night explorations. For instance, I am a more conservative person than I once thought. My interest in history has grown deeper through the years. Especially intriguing to me are cultures and eras that comprise my own family experience. I have a more coherent concept of treasured, traditional values than I once did. There are vast amounts of insight and ideas worth conserving known to me only because keepers of the lore and traditions of the past preserved this treasure.

     Bouts of insomnia have also enabled me to realize how liberal I am. One of the things I have discovered is a stubborn streak of anti-intellectualism that seems too often present in conservatism. A general conservative resistance to curiosity about the unexplored surprises me. This shows up especially in the debate between fundamentalist Christians and modern scientists. It is surprising how some intelligent people can stand in the shadow of a fossilized skeleton of a Tyrannosauraus Rex and argue that the creature never existed. On many sleepless nights I have wrestled with this kind of thing to the conclusion that while I am not blessed with a scientific mind, I am endowed with a gigantic curiosity. This may be why one of my favorite Bible verses is: “You shall know the truth and the truth shall set you true.” It is a spiritual thing, this pursuit of information and the quest for knowledge. The religious person who fears that secular knowledge will undermine faith makes a serious error—all secular truth is also sacred. It, along with everything else, was created by God. It may be possible to drive an automobile forward by referring only to a rearview mirror. However, it is far faster, safer and easier to go forward mostly by peering through a nice, clean windshield.

     Sleepless nights, insomnia, can open a world of learning when the cable television or a good book are handy. The worst thing is to lie in the dark looking restlessly at the ceiling. Now, that’s a real invitation to serious mischief.

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