“Sleeping
With Bread: Holding What Gives You Life” Part 2
By Rev. Marcia Moret Sietstra
Last week I talked about how
we might all benefit from doing an ancient exercise called the Examen. I am seeing
this process is being used in contemporary retreats and self-help books, even
books for business executives as a way to access their own wisdom. It consists of ending each day by asking
yourself two questions: For what moment today am I most grateful? and For
what moment today am I least grateful? There
are other ways to phrase the same basic questions, such as:
When did I feel most alive today? When did I feel most depleted? At what moment
today did I have the greatest sense of
being who I am capable of being for myself, others, and God? At what moment did I have the least sense of
being who I am called to be? You can spend 30 seconds or 30 minutes examining the
effects the day has had on your heart.
Here’s how a woman named
Sheila Linn describes using these questions in her life, in a wonderful little book
she co-authored with her husband and brother-in-law, Sleeping With Bread: Holding On To What Gives us Life.[1] Sheila, by asking these two questions
every day, discovered, over time, a pattern to the experiences that gave her
the most gratitude, feelings of being connected with her best self and
God. It happened most when she was out
in nature, and when she was sharing her love of creation during the retreats
she leads. She said, it was as if noticing
God in nature and helping others see God in nature was what she was intended to
do with her life. Sheila believes that
before she was even born, God had a special purpose for her time on earth. She calls it her “sealed orders,” and
believes it is up to each of us to find out what is in our “sealed orders.” One of the ways she figured out what she
believes to be her purpose in life was by noticing what was clearly not her
purpose in life, i.e. noticing those experiences that gave her feelings of depletion
and feelings of disconnection from her best self, and God.
What is your life’s purpose? Have you discovered it yet? Have you examined
the moments that give you joy, and the moments that discourage you, in order to
see what experience is teaching you? I
don’t know if God gives us each a special purpose for our life, like “sealed
orders.” It could simply be that we are
born with a unique set of talents and disposition that lends itself to a unique
life purpose. I think it’s also possible
that one’s purpose changes as we age. Regardless of how you see it, our task is
to discover what we are most capable of being at this time in our lives…and our
experiences can help teach us what that is. Perhaps you once defined yourself as father;
now it may be that you see yourself as mentor or philanthropist.
One of the things Sheila
said, in her book, was that burnout comes not primarily form doing too much,
but from doing what we don’t want to do or that for which we are not
well-suited. So if you are in a job that
gives you more sadness than joy, perhaps it would help to start paying
attention to what gives you gratitude and praise, because that is one way the
Spirit can lead you in a new direction.
Robert Johnson suggests that we summarize the special purpose of our
life in a single word or phrase that “names” who we are.[2] I can do that: I am a teacher of theology. That is what I do best, love most, and thus
what I think I am best suited to do. Who
and what are you? And just as
importantly, Who and what are you not? What is your life’s purpose, that you are
meant to discover?
Perhaps you are past making
career choices. Perhaps you are entering
a new stage of life—midlife or late life.
Perhaps it would be helpful for you to begin to ask yourself, What makes me feel the most alive. What doesn’t?
Expect that the answers will
change as you get older. Carl Jung said,
“We cannot live the afternoon of our life according to the program of life’s
morning.” Doing the Examen
questions each day with a spouse or friend may help you identify a new pattern
for living wisely. Centuries ago, St. Ignatious said, let your deepest moments of consolation and
desolation speak to you because “Experience is the best teacher.”[3] If St. Ignatious
were alive today, he might say it this way:
God is still speaking. Unfortunately, many of us do not know how to
listen to our own hearts tell us what the Spirit knows and is revealing in
“sighs too deep for words.” But if we
take time to ask ourselves “what is the purpose of my life,” and allow the past
and the present to inform the future, then we can have a renaissance in
mid-life or late-life.
I want to give one last
example of how the use the daily Examen. It is easily used with children. The questions might be reframed as What was the best part of your day? What was your worst part of the day? With
older children, the questions might be What
did you feel good about today? What was
your biggest struggle today, or when did you feel sad, helpless or angry?
Inviting children to share
their answers at the dinner table can build a habit of sharing feelings with
their parents. Imagine this
happening: When asked, “What was your
best part of the day?” One kid says it was when I soaked my little brother with
the hose. His younger brother, however,
might say his worst part of the day was getting drenched. A parent can gently guide both children in
reconciling with each other. Both
children are learning from the Examen that one
person’s best part of the day might be another’s worst part of the day, and to
respect each other in their differences. [4]
Having parents show an
interest in their feelings of gratitude and their feelings of sorrow teaches
children to trust their feelings. It
teaches them to face their own mistakes, and bring those mistakes into the
light for healing. It teaches them that
the Spirit is speaking through them. We
have a hard time believing that our own thoughts can actually be from the
Spirit, but recall Jesus’ words in Matt. 10:20, “it will not be you speaking,
but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.” [5] The Spirit is there, waiting to speak through
and to you. May you create the space to
listen. Amen.