Blog Post

Sleep

by Charles Péguy

Feast of St Kallistos I, Patriarch of Constantinople

Anno Domini 2020, June 20

Christ sleeping during storm on the Sea of Galilee

God Speaks:

I don’t like the man who doesn’t sleep, says God.

Sleep is the friend of man.

Sleep is the friend of God.

Sleep is perhaps the most beautiful thing I have created.

And I myself rested on the seventh day.

He whose heart is pure, sleeps. And he who sleeps has a pure heart.

That is the great secret of being as indefatigable as a child.

Of having that strength in the legs that a child has.

Those new legs, those new souls,

And to begin afresh every morning, ever new,

Like young hope, new hope.

But they tell me that there are men

Who work well and sleep badly.

Who don’t sleep. What a lack of confidence in me.

It is almost more serious than if they worked badly and slept well.

Than if they did not work but slept, because laziness

Is not a greater sin than unrest,

It is not even so great a sin as unrest

And despair and lack of confidence in me.

I am not talking, says God, about those men

Who don’t work and don’t sleep.

Those men are sinners, to be sure. They have what they deserve.

Great sinners. It’s their fault for not working.

I am talking about those who work and don’t sleep.

I pity them. I am talking about those who work and who, in this,

Obey my commandment, poor children.

And who on the other hand lack courage, lack confidence, and don’t sleep.

I pity them. I have it against them. A little. They wont’ trust me.

Like the child who innocently lies in his mother’s arms, thus do they not lie

Innocently in the arms of my Providence.

They have the courage to work. They haven’t enough virtue to be idle.

To stretch out. To rest. To sleep.

Poor people, they don’t know what is good.

They look after their business very well during the day.

But they haven’t enough confidence in me to let me look after it during the night.

As if I wasn’t capable of looking after it during one night.

He who doesn’t sleep is unfaithful to Hope.

And it is the greatest infidelity.

Because it is infidelity to the greatest Faith.

Poor children, they conduct their business with wisdom during the day.

But when evening comes, they can’t make up their minds,

They can’t be resigned to trust my wisdom for the space of one night

With the conduct and the governing of their business.

As if I wasn’t capable, if you please, of looking after it a little.

Of watching over it.

Of governing and conducting, and all that kind of stuff.

I have a great deal more business to look after, poor people, I govern creation, maybe that is more difficult.

You might perhaps, and no harm done, leave your business in my hands, O wise men.

Maybe I am just as wise as you are.

You might perhaps leave it to me for the space of a night.

While you are asleep

At last

And the next morning you might find it not too badly damaged perhaps.

The next morning it might not be any the worse perhaps.

I may yet be capable of attending to it a little. I am talking of those who work.

And who in this obey my commandment.

And don’t sleep, and who in this

Refuse all that is good in my creation,

Sleep, all the good I have created,

And also refuse my commandment just the same.

Poor children, what ingratitude towards me

To refuse such a good

Such a beautiful commandment.

Poor children, they follow human wisdom.

Human wisdom says Don’t put off until tomorrow

What can be done the very same day.

But I tell you that he who knows how to put off until tomorrow

Is the most agreeable to God.

He who sleeps like a child

Is also he who sleeps like my darling Hope.

And I tell you Put off until tomorrow

Those worries and those troubles which are gnawing at you today

And might very well devour you today.

Put off until tomorrow those sobs that choke you

When you see today’s unhappiness.

Those sobs which rise up and strangle you.

Put off until tomorrow those tears which fill your eyes and your head,

Flooding you, rolling down your cheeks, those tears which stream down your cheeks.

Because between now and tomorrow, maybe I, God, will have passed by your way.

Human wisdom says: Woe to the man who puts off what he has to do until tomorrow.

And I say Blessed, blessed is the man who puts off what he has to do until tomorrow.

Blessed is he who puts off. That is to say Blessed is he who hopes. And who sleeps.

Originally published in God Speaks: Religious Poetry by Charles Péguy, tr. Julian Green (New York: Pantheon, 1945), 21-23.

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