Lately I've been moving slower, slower, slower. It could be the cold medication I'm taking at night. Last night, I think someone filled my Nyquil bottle with some nasty tasting placebo. Despite what the commercials promise, it didn't stop the coughing-aching-stuffy head-fever...and I DID NOT REST. It just gave me hallucinations and made time crawl as I sucked on cough drops. I finally came to the surface at 4 am, and I'd swear in a court of law that I didn't really sleep a wink all night.

It occurs to me that often we're living life in a similar, semi-conscious state.
We are just rushing at the speed of life to The Next Thing...the next day, the next accomplishment, the next To Do list. We're a bit like hamsters on a wheel. Where do they think they're going, anyway? Or are they trying to whittle down their thunder thighs? They run and run and don't get anywhere. Kind of like...well, you draw the comparision.

Where do Dorothy and the hamster collide? They both think they're getting somewhere. They're both not. Dorothy is lulled to sleep by the Nyquil-esque poppies. If it weren't for her friends, she would have stayed there, sleeping her life away. There's a lesson here, fellow Dorothies.

WAKE UP!

We're much the same way! Just goin' through the motions, day in, day out. Waiting for the weekend, for vacation, for the kids to grow up, for the kids to come home.

Annie Dillard writes, "We are most deeply asleep at the switch when we fancy we control any switches at all. We sleep to time's hurdy-gurdy; we wake, if we ever wake, to the silence of God."

Oh! How I want to wake up! I want to "wake to the silence of God." I want to get off the hamster wheel. If I run anywhere, I want to run on purpose, not simply because it's-what-I've-always-done.

Are you in a daze? Doing the same thing, for reasons you can no longer remember? Like the hamster, you might be on the wheel out of sheer habit. Like Dorothy, you might be sleeping when it's time to get moving.

Ask God about it. I know 'm going to...right after my nap.