For twenty years until the advent of 24 hour TV in the early 1990’s, the New Zealand TV day concluded with a one minute animation of a kiwi preparing for bed. It was worth staying up to watch, and the brief clip provided a worthy reminder that now the day was done and it was time for all wise people to be in bed.

Today’s news reported the death of Sam Harvey, the creator of this bedtime treat.

In recent weeks I have had the privilege of staying in a couple of monasteries, where the end of day ritual of prayer and stillness provides an appropriate harbinger of sleep. How easy it is to work on the computer or watch action TV until the last minutes before sleep, but such activity is a poor preparation for the nightly hours of re-creation.

Some of the best known children’s bed-time prayers remind us that falling to sleep at night is a relaxation into God’s kind keeping. Remember the well known “now I lay me down to sleep?”

You might appreciate watching goodnight kiwi again. And let’s take a moment to pray for it’s creator, Sam. May he rest in God’s eternal peace.