Winter Issue 7
Letters From an Insomniac I
On the Nature of Daylight
By Andrew Wilson
“Here comes the sun, here comes the sun, and I said, it's alright…” George Harrison
“Also, the sun rises and the sun sets; and hastening to its place it rises there again.” Ecclesiastes 1:5 (NASB)
What follows is a series of letters about suffering from chronic insomnia that I wrote while reflecting on the season of Lent. My intention is to speak quite honestly about hopelessness and hope in equal measure, and on being without regular sleep for an absurdly long time. This year I am attempting to take Lent quite seriously. In a variety of ways, I see the last eighteen months as an extended period of Lent.
In June of last year, I was diagnosed with severe chronic insomnia. Acute insomnia lasts from one night to a few weeks. Insomnia is chronic when it happens at least three nights a week for at least three months. I have suffered from severe insomnia for eighteen months. A year ago I was only able to get 45 minutes of sleep each night. That sleep was interrupted and I was only normally able to get it between 6:00 am and 8:00 am. On the worst nights, seeing the daylight was not a good experience for me. When the daylight bled through the shutters in the early hours of the morning, it came in as an intruder. I've seen more sunrises in the last eighteen months than I care to count. Daylight did not mean the start of a fresh new day full of possibilities, it meant another night of failure—I felt defeated.
The consequences of sleep deprivation at 24 hours is comparable to the cognitive impairment of someone with a blood alcohol content of 0.10 percent, according to a study published in the International Journal of Occupational Medicine and Environmental Health. At 36 hours, your health begins to be at risk. High levels of inflammatory markers are in the bloodstream, which can eventually lead to cardiovascular disease and high blood pressure. Additionally, hormones are affected—your emotions can be all over the place. After 48 hours of no sleep, the body begins compensating by shutting down for micro-sleeps, episodes that last from half a second to half a minute and are usually followed by a period of disorientation. After 72 hours, expect significant deficits in concentration, motivation, perception, and other higher mental processes after many sleepless hours. Even simple conversations can be a chore.
I have experienced a few periods of being awake for 72 hours, many of them while I was studying here at Regent in the fall of 2018. At the time I was working on the Regent College Podcast and taking two courses. I am unapologetically an enormous fan of the college. I have enjoyed incredible opportunities while studying here. After 98 hours of being awake in October 2018, I needed to drop out and leave my job on the podcast. This decision flattened me. I had no energy, no resources, no resolve to continue. It is a difficult feeling to explain. I will attempt to do so here by borrowing from one of my favourite writers, J.R.R. Tolkien. The Fellowship of the Ring contains one of my favourite scenes in all of fiction. In the film adaption by Peter Jackson, Bilbo attempts to speak to Gandalf about how worn out he feels. After reclining for tea and wine, Bilbo remarks: “I know I don't look it, but I'm beginning to feel it in my heart. I feel thin, sort of stretched, like butter scraped over too much bread.” Now, imagine a loaf of bread with sixteen slices, each slice representing an hour. If you work long hours, it would be quite normal to expect to be awake for that long. That means an average time to wake up would be 6:30 am with a bedtime of 10:30 pm. Imagine ninety-eight slices of bread, with a teaspoon of butter scraped over each one of them, then you may get close to what I was experiencing that fall.
I still suffer from the effects of sleep deprivation. I still have not returned to a normal sleep schedule. And yet, time and time again, I am stunned with the amount of support that I continue to receive. Students, professors, friends, former colleagues connect with me regularly and ask me about my sleep. Now I can get 3-4 hours of sleep per night. When people ask me how I am doing, I normally say that I am halfway to normal. This phrase carries a lot of weight for me. I believe that our experience of becoming more Christ-like has something to do with feeling 'halfway to normal.’ I am being formed daily into the image of Jesus Christ. I'm on the mend, I'm experiencing gradual improvement with sleep, and I treat each hour of sleep that I receive as an incredible blessing—straight from the hand of God.
I Am Made of Clay
By Kelly Dycavinu
I am made of clay
Of clay and bone
breath and thread
Woven, whispered, wedged
First formed by the First
and Last
I am made of ash
Of sinew and soot
dust and dirt
Sewn, sifted, swept
My name in a grain
of sand
I am made of earth
Of rocks and moss
sinter and cloth
Grown, gathered, gowned
in glorious
flowers
I am made of clay
Of ash and earth
To these I return
yet always to remain
is that
I am made.
In Me
By David Raimundo
May flesh be found in me, when you return
May flesh be found in me, not only stone.
May breath be found in me, when you at last come
May breath be found in me, not only bones.
May the other be found in me, when you arrive
May the other be found in me, not only self.
RCSA Academic Symposium
On March 6, 2020, the RCSA Council will be hosting our annual Academic Symposium, featuring the students of Regent College and their excellent academic work. There will be a total of six sessions, each focused on a particular area of interest, with each participant presenting a recent paper. We thought you might like a sneak peek at some of the fascinating things you can look forward to learning about at the Symposium. For a full list of presentations, sessions, and times, please visit rcsa.regent-college.edu/symposium
The Limitations of Bible Translation Theory as Revealed in Jerome’s Letter to Pammachius (Ep. 57)
Presented by Mary Beth Lascurain
Jerome’s oft-quoted Epistle 57 to Pammachius has often been regarded as a defining document for Bible translation theory, given its author’s work as architect of the first unified Christian translation. However, it will be shown that Jerome’s Epistle 57, rather than presenting a coherent translation theory, expresses conflicting views on Biblical translation technique. Next, it will be shown that such contradiction springs from understandable but conflicting impulses in translation theory which are exacerbated by a high view of Scripture. Finally, it will be suggested that because these conflicts cannot entirely be resolved, Bible translators in particular should exercise transparency concerning the inevitable compromise inherent in any translation technique.
Voice and Viriditas in Hildegard of Bingen’s Ordo Virtutum
Presented by Amy Lemke
Hildegard of Bingen’s 12th-century morality play, Ordo Virtutum (Order of the Virtues), displays a relationship between voice and her concept of viriditas which encompassed the greenness of natural life, physical and spirituality health, and the vitality of God present in the world through the Incarnate Christ. This paper explores Hildegard’s aesthetic to argue that, for the Disibodenberg nuns, the voice was thought to hold unique capacity for experiencing union with Christ. This is seen particularly in the relationship between music and text in the play. Ordo Virtutum is a seminal work in Medieval musical history but also an accessible example of a uniquely artistic and communal exercise in spiritual formation.
In Loving Memory: Applying a Theological Anthropology of Trinitarian Personhood Toward the Problem of Memory Loss
Presented by Abraham Wu
This paper will argue that the problem of memory loss for personhood is a metonymic fallacy - while memory is indeed constitutive of personhood, it is only a part of the self - not the whole. Instead, a theological anthropology that “engages in the quest to speak about humankind by viewing the human reality from the perspective of an understanding of God” starts from the imago Dei and imago trinitatis to see human beings as “persons-in-relation,” meaning that one is not merely self-constructed by memory, but is also constituted by their relationships with others and—primarily—in relationship to the God who does not forget (Is. 49:15).