Sleeping with Bread: Sleeping with Bread is all the buzz

Sunday, August 02, 2009

Sleeping with Bread is all the buzz

Last Saturday I sat among 38,000 Lutheran youth and youth ministers and waited with baited breath as Donald Miller (author of Blue Like Jazz), came onstage to address the crowd. He spoke of the challenge of being authentic in service to others, even in the areas that aren't so fun or are not the areas of service we feel we are "good" at. Donald spends a great deal of time still writing and working with The Mentoring project, that pairs adult men with boys that lack relationships with positive male role models. He spoke of the joys and challenges of mentoring. Mentoring requires the mentor to stay engaged and interested in the life of another person, even when that person does not turn out to be tiny Tim.

The Mentoring Project - Elephant Musth Cycle from The Mentoring Project on Vimeo.

Being with others and living in community is difficult to say the very least, but the option of living in isolation from others does not offer very much interest to me. How about you?

Just as the caretakers of those shell-shocked children gave them bread to sleep with for comfort, their actions probably placed them in difficult or sometimes dangerous situations. Those caretakers knew how to "keep it real"- even in the middle of air raids.

This week in sleeping with bread, I've been thinking a great deal about both giving and receiving comfort. Sometimes, we are the thankful recipient of some kind words or gesture. Sometimes we are called to be the voice of comfort, maybe even the voice for those who have no audience to listen to very real and dire needs. Sometimes we are called to be the hands and feet to provide bread to others, even outside of comfort zones we prefer to stay safely behind.

As part of Donald's talk, he mentioned a note he'd received from Anne Lamott, stating the importance of the concept and application of Sleeping with bread as she asked him... "What bread are you holding on to Donald, and what bread are you giving away?"

Good question Anne. That's one I think I need to give some thought.
In this first week of August, what are your thoughts on the bread of your life?

Let's share some bread, and please leave your blog urls in the comment section this week as Mary Lue is away attending to her Mother's unexpected funeral plans, and I'm not quite sure how to get Mr. Linky to work. Please keep Mary (our regular SWB host) in your thoughts and prayers, and maybe leave her a note of encouragement at her blog, "Life, the Universe and Everything."

Peace and Bread,
Lamont

5 comments:

Tara Lamont said...: http://lamont-uphill.blogspot.com/2009/08/swb-mash-up.html

Here is my SWB post for the week at Uphill Idealist.

How has your week been all?; August 03, 2009 9:31 AM
ashley said...: That's a great host post.
Mine's up at http://gaudiumveritate.blogspot.com/2009/08/its-monday.html
Have a great week everyone.; August 03, 2009 5:29 PM
Anonymous said...: Here's mine: http://unfinishedperson.com/2009/07/31/flashback-friday-i-wanna-get-on-the-good-foot/

And another way Anne Lamott gave us to phrase the question each week: nice.; August 03, 2009 7:11 PM
Tara Lamont said...: Thanks Ashley and Unfinished person...hope you have a bread filled week!; August 03, 2009 8:43 PM
Mel said...: Oh thank you so much for picking this up in Mary's absense, Tara.

Nope--no link for me this week.
But I'll make that time happen.....didn't I just comment on disciplines? LOL

Yep.
I did!

Thanks, Tara....bunches.; August 07, 2009 5:23 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!