Here is a phenomenon that is occurring for me as I get older: I call it "night cleansing."
I am someone who usually sleeps well. But every couple of months now, I wake around 3am and cannot get back to sleep. My mind is churning with old experiences,
old places and people, old dilemmas, people I haven't thought of for years, and on and on. There is nothing to be done with or about all this churning. But here is what makes it a "night cleansing": when I get up as early as usual, I am energetic and lighter
and don't even miss the sleep for the rest of the day, though part of the thought churning was how tired I would be when I got up!
I expect that this phenomenon is an expression of what Fr. Thomas Keating calls "Divine Therapy." After a certain age,
especially if you have been considering your inner life for most of your adult years like I have, some Divine Energy takes over the process and "cleanses" your soul in the way I just described. Layer after layer...preparing the soul, I would add, for its final
release in dying.
I love this way of considering the inner workings of the soul. I find it consoling and inviting...and the night cleansing experience a direct response to my prayers of surrender and releasing old hurts, misunderstandings, childhood
misinterpretations, and my long history of interpreting ( and misinterpreting) tumultuous events everywhere.