“Sleeping With Bread: Holding What Gives You Life” Part 1

By Rev. Marcia Moret Sietstra

Nov. 4, 2007 Spirit of Peace UCC

On MPR last month I heard a young woman telling a true story about her grandmother. Her grandmother died recently, at a very advanced age. She had lived quite a long and full life, and in recent years had learned to use the internet and delighted in all the research that she could do on the net. Her granddaughter was proud of how grandma had learned this new technology, and that it made it easy for her to be in contact with old friends and family all over the country. She had even used the internet to research her own illness. There came a day when the grandmother lay dying and could no longer use her computer, of course. The granddaughter and her mother sat vigil at the bedside. And finally the end came. Grandma had been communicating with them right up until the end, but shortly before she died, the grandmother could only whisper. The granddaughter said her mother would put her ear close to grandma so she could hear what the dying woman was saying. And the last words spoken by the grandmother on this earth were, “Erase my email.” How things have changed!

Do you, like me, often spend at more than 2 hours a day on email? Email is a mixed blessing, because although it makes it easy to communicate, it vastly increases our communication, for many of us by as much as a thousand fold. Well, recently I’ve decided not to look at email in the evening, if I don’t have to. I sleep better when I don’t read a bunch of emails an hour before bedtime. I have found a much better evening exercise that I want to share with you today. It is really quite simple…

I try to take some time at the end of each day to ask myself two questions. The two questions are these: For what moment today am I most grateful? and For what moment today am I least grateful?

There are many ways to ask these same two questions, such as: When did I give and receive the most love today? When did I give and receive the least love today?

When did I feel most alive today? When did I most feel life draining out of me?

When today did I have the greatest sense of being who I am capable of being for myself, others, God and the universe? When did I have the least sense of being who I am capable of being?

When was I happiest today? When was I saddest? What was today’s high point? What was today’s low point?

Let’s take just a moment for each of you to silently ask yourself: For what moment last week am I most grateful? For what moment last week am I least grateful?

Now I’ll share an example. One evening this week, when I asked myself what I was most grateful for that day, I realized I was really grateful for the feeling I had while leading an animated discussion about theology. That was the time I was happiest that day—it made me feel the most alive and gave me a sense that I was doing what I am most capable of doing for myself, and others, and God. That same day, when I asked myself what I was least grateful for, I realized I was least grateful for the moment when I spoke to someone out of frustration and impatience.

Realizing both things helped me. When I think about what I am not grateful for, I create the opportunity to name it, feel it, and appreciate that I am not denying it. To do this helps to heal my negative feelings about it, because acknowledging one’s mistake and pain is the way we can start healing. And when I end get in touch with what I am grateful for from the day, I feel good about myself, and good about blessings in my life.

The process I am describing is really nothing new, even though you will find versions of it in new self-help books, and even in popular books for business executives suffering from stress. Taking time to ask yourself at the end of each day these two questions: For what moment today am I most grateful? and For what moment today as I least grateful? is part of an ancient Jesuit Christian practice called the Awareness Examen. It literally helps us examine our lives, something we do very little of in our over-worked, over-busy culture. I believe it is a form of prayer, a contemplative, listening prayer because we are listening to the spirit speaking through our experience, when we answer these 2 questions. And there is something extra valuable about doing it at night, I believe.

Have you ever noticed how sometimes, when you can’t remember something during the day, you wake up in the morning and suddenly think of it? You can’t remember a name, and the next morning you wake up, and there it is! Or you go to bed having lost something, and in the morning you suddenly remember where it is. That’s because when you “sleep on” something, it enters your unconscious and continues to be processed in your unconscious during the night.

Think about what happens if you go to bed feeling grateful for what went well that day. That feeling of gratitude bathes your unconscious, and may impact the unconscious work you do while you sleep, as well as the way you wake up the next morning.

I have read that during the bombing raids of World War II, 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 that piece of bread, these children could finally sleep. The bread reminded them, “Today I ate and I will eat again tomorrow.”

Perhaps going to bed having asked ourselves what we fed our spirit that day, recalling a moment when we were our best self, is like taking bread to bed. We go to sleep reassured that today there was indeed something to be very grateful for, and tomorrow there will be too. Like hungry children holding bread, many of us are spiritually hungry adults looking for signs of hope especially in troubled times. It may be in times of war or times of personal difficulty; everyone at some time in their life has those difficult times. The writer of Ephesians says, I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you… with the eyes of your heart enlightened… what are the eyes of your heart discovering these days?

For centuries, the Examen has helped Christians reflect on what the “spirit” is telling them about their weaknesses and strengths. It’s amazing what you can figure out by way of daily reflection. I know of a couple who, by asking these two questions every day, discovered some surprising things about how they needed to change their lives. It began one day when they were at an English/Spanish conference in the U.S. where they spent part of the day listening to Anglo music and part of the day listening to Hispanics play music. That night they shared with each other that the moment each one was most grateful for that day was when the Hispanic music was played, and that the moment they felt least grateful for was the way the conference dragged when the Anglos led it.

At first glance these moments seemed insignificant, but over the next several months, this couple noticed a pattern in which often their moments of gratitude centered around Hispanic people. If this had only happened a few times, they might have ignored it. But because they did the Examen regularly, they began to notice that Hispanics were often connected to their moments of greatest consolation, moments when they felt they were giving and receiving love and joy. Now because this couple believes that God’s will for us is, whenever possible, to do more of whatever gives us consolation and healthy feelings of gratitude and joy, they decided to study Spanish in Bolivia and spend the next three years giving retreats in Latin America. Insignificant moments when looked at each day become significant because they form a pattern that often points the way to how we can live our best life. What are your best and worst moments of each day telling you about your life?

Next Sunday, I will continue with part 2 of this sermon, and talk more about how these two questions that make up the ancient Christians ritual called the Examen can help us make life-changing decisions as they reveal to us what gives us life and what depletes us, so that we can make needed changes in our careers and in our personal lives. I will also talk about using these 2 questions with your children, who can learn to feel connected with the Spirit, as they also learn to trust their best instincts by daily reflecting with a parent on what makes them feel sad and what makes them feel good about their days. Sharing their feelings as a family is a little like sharing bread, because it nurtures and feeds their spirits.

And now, it is time for us to receive the bread of communion, a symbol of so much in our tradition. I am reminded today of the bread that the orphan children of WW II took to bed to reassure them that they would eat tomorrow, just as they did today. As we receive bread, may we also be reassured that the Spirit works through us, as it did through Jesus.