I have a son who crashes at my house on weekends. After a busy, strenuous work week with long hours and strange sleeping times he hits our couch like a WWF wrestler thrown to the mat. His six-foot-four frame doesn’t quite match the five-foot-ten gap between the armrests of the couch but he doesn’t seem to mind. His legs and neck are in odd contortions as he breaths so heavy the house seems to resonate with the bass. I walk by to begin my morning routine of reading newspapers, watching cable news, and sucking down 1-2 Diet Cokes and he sleeps. My wife begins her morning, we talk, we make noise and some mornings the vacuum goes, the dishwasher, even the lawn mower outside and still he sleeps. We could shake him; pour water on him, and even shave his head and he would still sleep. As a toddler I remember when my wife and I woke up to a banging in the kids room. I went to investigate and found the same son, sound asleep, sleepwalking. He had walked into the closet and was taking a step forward, banging his head on the wall, backing up, taking a step forward, banging his head on the wall, backing up … you get the idea. The kid can sleep through anything.
Suddenly I hear a whisper of a chirp. Then I hear it again, a little louder but still to soft to know what it is. Is it a bird, a squirrel, a cricket? By the third chirp I see my son roll over and answer his cell phone as if he was awake all the time.
We tune ourselves into certain calls and eliminate other noises from our minds. Our amazing brains are capable of sorting through sounds and determining whether that sound is a noise to ignore or a call to answer. All of us have seen young kids who can tune out their parents until that parental voice gets to a certain volume and angry strain, and then they answer the call.
Our nation got a wake up call again with Hurricane Katrina. Suddenly we all woke up out of our stupor and responded with love, money, time and energy. We did the same at 9/11 four years ago. It is as if our hearts heard a wake up alarm and opened up and responded to the plight of others. It is a joy to see people donating homes, money, and goods that they would normally spend on themselves to OTHERS. Our hearts are awake, alive, and moved; we answered the call.
I pray the drowsiness that will come back, the sleep that follows, and the closed hearts be delayed as long as possible.