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January-March, 2012

An Alarm to Awaken

Rev. Magdalena Smrdelj, O.M.C.

Yesterday, I received a frantic call from my daughter, who is attending a university out of town. She had slept through her alarm, and missed her exam. She arrived 20 minutes before the end of the allotted time and the classroom was already empty. (Anybody ever have a dream like this?)

She had already been excused for a previous mid-term, with those marks added to this exam, because a friend of hers had committed suicide the day before. She was going through all the panic and worry and fear of having a failed course on her transcript, and how could she be so stupid as to sleep through the alarm, and there was no hope because the professor emphasized that there would be no re-writes and so on.

In the heat of the moment, her father and I helped her focus on how to communicate with the professor, while maintaining a non-judgmental stance. Both of us knew very well how many ‘stupid’ things we’ve done over the course of our lives! We encouraged her to send an e-mail, and leave a phone message, and leave a note under the door of the professor’s office every time she attempted to reach her, to show she wasn’t just communicating from bed in her pyjamas, but was present and willing to write the exam at any moment. And of course we helped her to show herself a little more compassion and forgiveness.

However, I was surprised to see how affected I was by this incident. I felt very protective of my daughter, and concerned that this happened to her after the suicide of her friend just a few weeks ago. I worried how this would affect her transcript and her Christmas holiday, and I longed to be able to ‘do’ more for her. I realized of course that the best I could do was to go to Spirit and see the innocence, perfection, joy and oneness of all God’s seemingly separate sons, including my suffering daughter, the professor, and the special star of the show, the over-protective mother who wasn’t even directly involved but still chose to enroll in the drama!

Today, as I thought more on it, and contemplated how such a small insignificant instant in the context of all time could have so much impact on us in the moment and be projected into a dismal future burdened with a failure on the university record and so forth, all because of one instant of sleeping through an alarm, I started to laugh out loud at the absurdity of it, and the deeper significance of this instant as a metaphor hit me.

Every time I choose to stay asleep in the dream that is this world, filled with ego’s cruel antics and raucous shrieks, I am sleeping through the alarm. Every time I fail to hear Holy Spirit’s gentle, calm, and soothing voice reassuring me all is very, very well, and coaxing me to awaken, I am sleeping through the alarm.

How many alarms have I slept through? (Yikes!) How about the one right now, in this moment, calling me to awaken to peace and love?

Will I sleep through it too?

© 2012, Pathways of Light. http://pathwaysoflight.org
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