Sleeping with Bread: Monday, May 11th

Monday, May 11, 2009

Monday, May 11th

Happy Monday-after-Mother's Day everyone!

I exercised my mothering privileges to delay actually writing this hosting post until this morning. (I usually write them on Sunday evenings.)

I hope the mothers among us enjoyed their day. To be honest, yesterday was a little bit "blech" for me. However, I did get an unsolicited (to my knowledge) mother's day greeting from my teenage son and a cute little card from my daughter on Saturday. It is one of those new recordable songs. My daughter is pretty shy about telling me she loves me but she did on the card. The card then goes on to play "I love you, a bushel and a peck, a bushel and a peck and a hug around the neck..." This is a song I sing to her some times so it was just perfect for the occasion. Official Mother's Day presents are supposedly in the mail.

This is my last week of school for the semester. My one and only final is next Monday and my papers are all due this week. It will be a challenge to finish but not an overwhelming one. It depends mostly on my own determination to not goof around too much.

It will be lovely to take a break now and then to read some Sleeping with Bread posts.

Oh! Don't forget to congratulate Mel on the addition of a new little member of her family. A very ADORABLE one.

Although the examen is a Christian practice, I would hope that anyone who has something to share would feel welcome here. Also, if you don't have your own blog and would like to participate, share your bread in the comments. To holding on to what gives life,

Mary-LUE

2 comments:

Dianne said...: So you're still sleeping with bread, just sleeping in with it! Good for you. We always loved that Bushel & a Peck song in our family.

HOpe your semester wraps up well.; May 11, 2009 1:10 PM
Mel said...: Awwwwww....thank you, ma'am. We're very pleased all is well for everyone!

Thank you. And I'm hoping for one of those singing cards someday soon! (betcha if I whine the girl WILL produce...LOL); May 11, 2009 6:37 PM

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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!