Can't sleep.
Sometimes I can't sleep because the same sentence swirls round and round my mind. It dances and spins and swims and stirs my thoughts.
The phrase of the moment is,
Opiate of the masses. Opiate of the masses Opiate of the masses opiate of the massesopiateof the masses
I wish for individual sedation but sleep does not come.
So here we are.
Carl Marx. He said Religion is the Opiate of the masses.
What a sad soul he must have been.
For the true Opiate that lulls the masses to sleep are, in fact, actual opiates. And other drugs.
I'm unclear on drugs 'cause I'm a Mormon and all but does alcohol count? I know alcohol makes people sleepy and silly and depressed. I looked up the definition of opiate but it didn't really give specifics.
True Opiates of the masses (if we're gonna get philosophical) are all those things that dull the senses.
Media does that. Like with sex. People really pay attention when you write the word sex.
Media tells folks it's cool to sleep with lots and lots of people. TROJAN MAN! Trojan man will take care of everything!
But does anyone, in the quiet of peaceful solitude, really believe promiscuity is healthy for body or spirit or mind? Individually we know better. As a society our true desires are blurred.
A society where the new morality is no morality is the real opiate.
I am terrified to raise my children in this world.
Opiate of the masses spins about my brain and I see their trusting little faces looking to me for guidance.
ME!
Who am I that I should offer guidance?
So I pray daily to my God and ask, nay BEG, for inspiration.
Help me to see things as they really are, Lord, I pray. Protect my family. Protect my children. Help me to teach them how to be happy in this life!
The answer I often hear as a response to my plea is AWAKE.
Tonight I read to my children. A passage from The Book Of Mormon
A dying father, Lehi, speaks to his children with trembling limbs before he goes to his cold and silent grave, from whence no traveler can return.
His last words to his sons are,
Awake; awake from a deep sleep, yea, even from the sleep of hell, and shake off the awful chains with which ye are bound...
Awake, my sons, put on the armor of righteousness...come forth out of obscurity, and arise from the dust... (2Nephi 1: 13-23).
I read to my children and reminded them that every morning we are given a chance to do better. And be better.
Every morning we are granted the opportunity to AWAKE. To get up and do something good.
Tonight I told them I have been guilty of sleeping whole days away with my eyes wide open. On Monday I eagerly wait for Friday. Come morning I can't wait for evening. This is not living.
Life is a gift. Every second. Every breath.
Marx was wrong. My religion does not lull me into a zombie-like sleep in which I cannot think for myself. Rather, I am taught in my beloved scripture to AWAKE.
Awake. Breathe. Love. Think. Serve. Give. Laugh. LIVE.
