Catching 40 Winks

You might want to be careful where you fall asleep. A woman in Philadelphia was found at 4 am yesterday asleep on a plan that was being prepped for the first flight of the day. He flight had arrived just past midnight.  She had four good hours of a nap before the Untied crew woke her. WOW – that is a powernap!  

The Dali Lama has said that “Sleep is the best meditation.” If that is the case, this woman has perhaps emerged from her slumber ready to give insight into how we might fix most of the world’s problems. Perhaps she achieved inner peace in that time. Who knows? I am certain of this, if it we me that was being called to consciousness in an airplane seat after four hours of sleep, there might be an international incident. I do not wake well and have been known to utter words that are not customary for a man of the cloth to use, when I am awoken unexpectedly.

While I do not think the crammed space of a United Airways passenger seat is the best place to hibernate, I do agree that sleep provides great rest and allows for insight into all kinds of things.  I do not sleep well…or should I say I do not ‘get to sleep’ very well. Once I have slipped into the place called sleep, I am very good at it. I lie aware and think about everything in the world there is to think about.  Thomas à Kempis suggested that, “Thou shalt rest sweetly if thy heart condemn thee not.” So perhaps the problem is a guilty conscience…but I think not! So I must confess that when I read the story about this woman on the plane what leapt out to me most was the fact that she was able to get four hours of uninterrupted sleep. I think she is to be congratulated, who knows what she might have had to deal with when she got home that might have took her from her sleep.

Perhaps tonight at about midnight I will head out to the Windsor airport in hopes of a spare seat in which to catch my 40 winks! I’d like a window seat please…

You can read about this woman’s ordeal by clicking here.