Latest / Bedtime Sleep Stories For Grownups / A Story for the Last Hour

Transcript

A Story for the Last Hour · Bedtime Sleep Stories For Grownups

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: To the last promise whispered in the night. Good evening,
• 0:05
  Speaker 1: dear one. Welcome to this place of rest. You are
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: here now. The day behind you has done everything it
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: intended to do, and now it is finished. The clock
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: on the wall still ticks, but it is not ticking
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: for you anymore. It is ticking for the world, for
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: the morning, for the hours that will come when you
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: have had your fill of sleep. But right now, this
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: hour belongs to you and to no one else. You
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: do not owe it to anyone. You do not have
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: to perform for it. You only have to lie down
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: or sit down or lean against whatever is soft and
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: close your eyes. And let the words come to you
• 0:58
  Speaker 1: the way rain comes to a field that has been
• 1:02
  Speaker 1: dry for a long time. Not all at once. Not forcefully. Gently.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: One drop at a time. Until the whole ground is glistening. Tonight,
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: I want to take you on a journey that has
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: no hurry. A journey through every age of the Bible,
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: from the moment when God spoke the first word over
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: the face of the deep to the moment when he
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: speaks the last word and says, Behold, I am making
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: all things new. It is a long road. It stretches
• 1:41
  Speaker 1: across thousands of years, across deserts and oceans. through gardens
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: and valleys, through dreams and visions, through exile and return,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: through suffering and through glory. And yet the road is
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: not made of years or miles. The road is made
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: of stillness. Every step of it has been prepared by
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: someone who sat down, who stopped running, who let the
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: silence surround them, and who heard in that silence the
• 2:14
  Speaker 1: voice of the one who holds the heavens in place.
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: So settle in, dear one. Let the pillow find the
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: right place beneath your head. Let the blanket settle over
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: your shoulders like something that was waiting for you all day,
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: something that knew exactly what shape your body would make
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: when it finally lay down. And let us begin at
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: the very beginning, where God speaks the first word over
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: the void, and the universe leans forward to listen. I
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: am Grace, and I will be with you for as
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: long as you need me tonight. Some of you are
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: listening to the first few minutes and will be asleep
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: before the first chapter ends. That is all right. Sorry
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: you will stay awake for the first hour, or the second,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: or perhaps the entire journey, walking with me through the
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: centuries the way a traveler walks a road at night, steadily, quietly,
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: seeing more by starlight than they could ever see by noon.
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: That is all right, too. There is no wrong way
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: to do this. Sleep when your body asks you to.
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: Wake if you must. Drift back if you can. The
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: story will be here whenever you need it, and the
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: God who is in the story is already where you
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: are going, waiting for you with the patience of someone.
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: who has been waiting since before time was born. Tonight,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: we will travel from Genesis to Revelation. We will stand
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: in the garden and listen to the voice of God
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: walking in the cool of the day. We will ride
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: the ark through the flood and watch the dove return
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: with a branch. We will climb a ladder made of
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: light and see angels ascending and descending on it. We
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: will stand before the burning bush and feel the ground
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: turn holy beneath our feet. We will walk through the
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: sea on dry ground and sing on the other side.
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: We will climb the mountain of the Beatitudes and hear
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: the blessed life described for the first time. We will
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: kneel in Gethsemane and hear the prayer that changed everything.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: And in the end, we will see a city descending
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: from heaven like a bride adorned for her wedding, and
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: we will know that every sorrow has found its end,
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: and every tear has been collected, and every night of
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: restless worrying has been answered by a morning that will
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: never end. Take your time. There is nowhere to go.
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: The road is long, and the stars are out. And
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: the one who made them all is the same one
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: who leads you to sleep tonight. Before we begin this
• 5:16
  Speaker 1: long journey, let us take a moment to recognize where
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: we are. Not in the Bible, not in the story,
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: right here, in this room, in this body, in this moment.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: You have been alive for a certain number of years.
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: Some of those years have been full of joy. Some
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: have been full of sorrow. Some have been full of
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: both at the same time, which is the hardest kind
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: of year there is. And in all those years you
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: have carried a great many things, responsibilities, promises. Wounds that
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: healed and wounds that did not. Faces you loved and
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: faces you had to leave behind. You have been brave.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: You have been afraid. You have been kind. You have
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: been tired. You have been the person others needed you
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: to be, even when the person they needed you to
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: be was far more than you had energy for. Tonight
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: we lay all of that down. Not permanently. Not forever.
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: Just for tonight. Just for these hours. The things that
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: need your attention in the morning will still be there
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: in the morning and you will meet them then, with
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: fresh eyes and rested hands, and a heart that has
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: been bathed in the kind of sleep that only comes
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: when the body is given permission to stop striving. But
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: right now, those things are not yours to carry. They
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: belong to the tomorrow that has not arrived yet. And
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: tomorrow is in God's hands, which is exactly where they
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: have always been. Take a breath, a slow one. In
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: through the nose, feeling the cool air fill the space
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: behind your ribs. Hold it there for a moment, just
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: long enough to feel the life in it, the way
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: it fills you, the way it enters you without your
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: permission and sustains you without your awareness. And now let
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: it go slowly out through the mouth. Let your jaw
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: drop slightly. Let the breath leave you the way the
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: tide leaves the shore. Slowly, without resistance, carrying something back
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: into the deep that it no longer needs, one more time,
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: in and out. Good. You are here. You are present.
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: You are ready. Let us begin. In the beginning, God
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: of the deep. and the Spirit of God moved upon
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: the face of the waters. And God said, Let there
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: be light, and there was light. There is something in
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: those first words that the mind can barely hold. Before
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: the light, there was darkness. Before the form, there was
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: the void. Before anything existed, there was the deep. And
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: over that deep, The Spirit of God was moving, not
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: with hurry, not with the urgency of someone trying to
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: fix something broken, but with the slow, patient movement of
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: someone who knows exactly what they are about to do,
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: and will not be rushed into doing it faster than
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: the moment requires. Imagine the darkness, dear one. Not the
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: darkness of your bedroom, which has walls and doors and
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: windows and a ceiling.