Saving Ray Of God

From The Solzhenitsyn Reader: New and Essential Writings, 1947-2005:

It's one thing in a labor camp: You break your neck the livelong day and, just you lay your head on a straw pillow, you hear: "U-u-u-up you get!" No nocturnal thoughts here.

But in the merry-go-round of our modern life, so frayed and fragmented, thoughts have no chance to ripen and settle during the day, and are abandoned. It is at night that they return to claim their due. No sooner does your mind's fog begin to lift, they lunge, they flood your flattened consciousness, jostling with each other. And one of the more caustic and audacious of the lot coils in front, ready to sting.

But your resistance, your dignity--is not to give yourself up to these gusts, but to master the dark torrent and guide it toward that which heals. For there is always a thought, often more than one, that introduces a tiny element of tranquility, like those controls rods inserted into a nuclear reactor to impede a meltdown. Just learn to find this element, this saving ray of God--or even have it on the ready--and hold on to it.

Then your soul and reason are cleansed, those gusts disperse, and into the troubled world of insomnia step beneficent, spacious thoughts--ones you could never have approached in the bustle of the day.

And thank insomnia: From this lookout, even the insoluble can be solved. Power over self.