After being encouraged by a respected friend, I undertook, what is for me, ‘the monumental task’ of reading The Brothers Karamazov. Since I am a slow reader, I usually have an aversion to lengthy books. I tend to read them so slowly that I, eventually, become impatient to finish the book, until I give up reading the book altogether. What convinced me, then, to read The Brothers? Perhaps, I thought that it would be as good, if not better than, Crime and Punishment, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Perhaps, I thought I might find wisdom and knowledge in the reading of it. Well, I am only half way through the book, and wisdom has already visited me.

     As I was reading the book, while labouring on a stationary bicycle in the gym, I came upon a part of the novel, where the protagonist, Alyosha, finds himself dozing off in his seat as he prays with the monastic community before dinner. This scene caught my attention because I share in Alyosha’s dilemma. While trying to pray after returning home from a day of teaching, my head nods jerkily as I try to stay awake; and, like Alyosha, I am unsuccessful. I then become upset with myself when I wake up groggily about an hour later because my only prayerful devotion has been to the weighty god of sleep. But wait, there is consolation here!

      As Fr. Paissy reads the story of the “Miracle at Canna” during the grace before meals, Alyosha dreams the scene, and, in his dream, God visits him, as does the recently deceased and saintly elder Zosima, who is Alyosha’s spiritual companion. Alyosha is comforted to learn that Zosima drinks the new wine in heaven. This elder loves Alyosha most of all because Alyosha can speak to people’s hearts. In the dream, Zosima sends Alyosha into the world to do just that – speak to people’s hearts. Alyosha then wakes up joyfully and does what he is told.

     It struck me, as I read this, that it is quite possible God speaks to me even though I am asleep. My spirit, after all, is always awake; and I do not have to be awake to pray. As long as my intention is to pray, it does not matter how distracted or sleepy I get. God finds a way to speak to me. I was so uncomfortable with this idea, that I gave little credibility to the dreams I had during prayerful sleep. But now, I think, ‘what if it is possible to pray while you sleep? What if everything we do and are is prayer, in as much as it is our intention to pray?’

     Ignatius says “pray, as everything depended on God.” Indeed, everything does depend on God, including prayer itself. God finds a way to us in spite of (and sometimes because of) our frailties and infirmities. In sleep, “death’s counterfeit,” GOD finds a way to us in our dreams; if we are lost out at sea on the darkest of nights, GOD finds a way to us walking on water; and in death itself, GOD finds a way to us through everlasting life. GOD even finds a way to slow readers, who daringly bury their faces in large books.