Sleeping with Bread #1

I found another meme! Sheesh, you say, what is with this woman?! Well, when it's late at night and I've forgotten all the brilliant things I was planning to write about, I surf around, find a meme, and it inspires me. This new one (new to me) seems easy yet thought provoking. It's called "Sleeping with Bread." What?! Okay, hear me out...

(Taken from the Sleeping with Bread site and written by Mary-LUE)

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.

This is beautiful and I want to participate. Although the examen is a Christian practice, anyone should be able to share and take part in this.

For what am I most grateful?

I am most grateful this week for my family. In the last year and a half, we lost my father, mother and my long time companion, my cat Indya. I have many friends who lost family members and friends in the last year as well. I have two brothers and one sister but our family is small because we never knew anyone on my father's side because he was adopted and his adoptive parents died before I was born. He lost touch with this siblings until shortly before he passed. Anyway, there's just a small group of us now. We invited everyone over for a spaghetti dinner the night before last and we had a great time. We talked, drank wine, played RockBand, drank more wine, and enjoyed each other's company. I am so grateful for every member of my family and pray that we will be together for many, many more years to come.

For what am I least grateful?

This week, I am least grateful for the distance between my sister's and my homes. There's about a four hour drive between us so we don't get to see each other very often. I hope that some day we will live closer together but I know we won't be moving to her town as it's too small and cold for us. My son loves it there and I know I would love visiting but my husband and I enjoy some of the perks of living in the suburbs. It's a short hop to the cities, stores are open late, and we can get close to people around us but still claim anonymity when its desired. I should say that I am also grateful for modern technology because without it, my sister and I would not be able to communicate daily by email!

There you have it. My first Sleeping with Bread post. I'm off to read what some of the other participates have written. I hope you'll join me in "Sleeping with Bread."