Insomnia, from which I occasionally suffer, can be great when working on sermons or catching up on a variety of letters and notes that need to be sent out. It's also good for catching that deer that's eating my rhubarb.
But, around early afternoon, it can be a bit of a drag. Rather, I can be a bit of a drag by early afternoon. Insomnia usually causes word-retrieval issues, spontaneous bursts of laughter at nothing in particular, and a certain impatience with common foibles. At those times, it's best that I not be around ordained colleagues. For some, it can permit compelling experiences with non-linear perception.
One of Christian history's insomniacs, as well as a sufferer of migraine headaches [specifically, scintillating scotoma] was Julian of Norwich, whose feast day is today, of whom more may be found here. Suffice it to say that she was one of the great mystics of the Anglican tradition and her story evocative of that portion of spirituality of which we seem rarely to speak these days. Given the volume of literature that has been produced about her and her visions, especially since the mid-20th century, she is certainly the most identifiable of Anglican mystics.
The saying, "…All shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well", which Julian claimed to be said to her by God Himself, reflects her theology. T.S. Eliot incorporated this phrase in his "Little Gidding", the fourth of his Four Quartets poems:
Whatever we inherit from the fortunate
We have taken from the defeated
What they had to leave us—a symbol:
A symbol perfected in death.
And all shall be well and
All manner of thing shall be well
By the purification of the motive
In the ground of our beseeching.
Lord God, in your compassion you granted to the Lady Julian many revelations of your nurturing and sustaining love: Move our hearts, like hers, to seek you above all things, for in giving us yourself you give us all; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.