A few posts ago I was semi-lamenting the dearth of memes going around the blogosphere these days...well, lo and behold, I found a website called The Daily Meme just chockful with ideas for memes -- even starting your own meme-based blog.
One of the cool memes I found there was Sleeping With Bread. The title references how, in World War II, displaced children found it easier to fall asleep if given a bit of bread to hold at night; an assurance of care and nourishment from day to day. The Sleeping With Bread meme is based on the Ignatian practice of examen, of reality-checking our lives by regularly reviewing them both in terms of the things that have brought us closer to God and the things that have drawn us away from God, and using our insights into our own experience to ask God for presence, strength and spiritual nourishment.
If you choose to play, pick a duration of time -- the past day, the past week, the past month -- and ask one or more of these questions:
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?
Since I'm at work -- not exactly an examen kind of place -- I will have to defer my response for later tonight...but if anyone cares to share here, feel free. And if you want to share this meme on your own blog, go for it.
4 comments:
Thank you very much for posting these questions... Mostly because as I look at them, I'm almost reduced to tears because I don't know the answer to the good ones, and I'm trying not to remember the bad ones.
Except, at least, in the last 48 hours... I was able to peak out at the Canadians for Kyoto rally: the first rally I've been able to go to in 3 YEARS because it actually coincided with a day off work.
Yipes, Cory, it sounds as if you're going through some Anfechtungen of your own...prayers ascending.
My least-connected moment in the past week: Falling into a funk where I automatically filtered everything that anyone said to me or did through the worst possible light...I got weepy for no apparent reason...I really was not a pleasant person to be around. I know that the anniversary of my mother's death is approaching, but that really was not uppermost in my thoughts at the time. And then I started getting angry at myself for not being able to keep my emotions in control...it was a vicious cycle of negativity and bad reaction and self-recrimination. I'm trying to think of my most connected moment...probably cooking with Fellow Traveler; we have very different kitchen styles, but we can work together and get the job done. I just had a bad week...some aspects of my job have been getting to me, and then the Mom thing that is apparently also getting to me on some level, and a whopping big medical bill, and current events, and just a lot of life loose ends keeping me edgy.
Another connected moment...hanging out with dogs. There's something about cross-species communication that is healing and joyful. My dog friend Katie -- who was abused horribly as a young dog, and still maintains a kind of residual sadness about her even though she has a palpable enjoyment of life -- loves to dance; I'll lift up my hands and sway my hips and she'll jump up on me and dance with me. Her dog-sis Cassie is a full-body hugger; she will wrap herself around me, look me right in the eye and "talk" to me, nose to nose, in this goofy, gutteral, Scooby-Doo way: "Rye ruv roo..." And then my own Codeman -- Fellow Traveler will watch him some days when I'm at work, and then when I come home, or go to her place, he'll come scampering over to me: "Auh-Wuh! Auh-Wuh! Auh-Wuh!" (A surprisingly reasonable approximation of my offline name.) They're so much work, but they're such a joy to have around.
LC, we had a day on the Ignatian tradition as part of that spir dir course I'm doing...and I came straight home and ordered the book
"Sleeping with Bread" - so this absolutely connected with where I am.
I wish I were organised about the examen (I wish I were organised about ANYTHING really).I really want to build it into life,- to have the experience and miss the meaning seems just sad.
Thank you for a thought provoking post - and don't you LOVE the image of sleeping with bread.
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