Sleeping with Bread: Sunday, May 13 to Saturday, May 19

Mel over at melsdream? drained and sustained.

Tara of Uphill idealist? Her bread was a long time coming.

Me, Mary-LUE of Life, the Universe and Everything? I wasn't sure if my bread was merely rising dough or already burnt.

What is Sleeping with Bread?

During the bombing raids of WWII, thousands of children were orphaned and left to starve. The fortunate ones were rescued and placed in refugee camps where they received food and good care. But many of these children who had lost so much could not sleep at night. They feared waking up to find themselves once again homeless and without food. Nothing seemed to reassure them. Finally, someone hit upon the idea of giving each child a piece of bread to hold at bedtime. Holding their bread, these children could finally sleep in peace. All through the night the bread reminded them, "Today I ate and I will eat again tomorrow." (Linn, Dennis et al, Sleeping With Bread, p.l)

These are the beginning words of a book that introduced me to a practice called the examen. The orphans held on to what nourished them and were thus able to sleep peacefully at night. The examen, based on the spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius, helps a person hold onto what spiritually nourishes him by looking at what is giving him consolation in his life or causing him desolation. It allows someone to express his gratitude to God for the good stuff and turn to him for solace for the bad stuff. It is quite simple. You simply ask yourself, in the last day/week/month what gave me consolation and what caused me desolation.

How do you do it?

Sleeping with Bread is a Monday meme. You can participate in one of two ways: 1) Pick one of the above examen question sets and answer it in the comments section of my SWB post; or, 2) Create your own Sleeping with Bread post. You are welcome to right click on the Sleeping with Bread button and save it to your own computer before uploading into your post. Then, make sure you come back and put the link to your post in the automated Mr. Linky form at the end of the current SWB post. I hope you will join me and my fellow bakers as we Sleep with Bread on Mondays!

Other Ways of Asking the Question

You can also phrase the question in any of the following ways:

For what am I most grateful? Least grateful?

When did I give and receive the most love? The least love?

When did I feel most alive? Most drained of life?

When did I have the greatest sense of belonging? Least sense of belonging?

When was I most free? Least free?

When was I most creative? Least creative?

When did I feel most connected? Least connected?

When did I feel most fully myself? Least myself?

When did I feel most whole? Most fragmented?

Sleeping with Bread

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

Sunday, May 13 to Saturday, May 19

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