Sleeping with Bread: Holding What Gives You Life

This book by Dennis Linn, Sheila Fabricant Linn, and Matthew Linn is about the spiritual practice of the daily examen. The title of the book, Sleeping with Bread, comes from a story about the thousands of children who were orphaned during World War II that ended up living in refugee camps. These children had trouble sleeping because they were so scared of waking up and not having enough to eat the next day or not having a place to live. Their sleeping troubles were solved when someone began giving each child a piece of bread to hold while they slept. The bread, a reminder that they would be taken care of and that they would have food the next day, gave the children the reassurance and peace they needed in order to fall asleep.

In a similiar way, the daily examen allows us to hold onto what gives us life. Through the daily examen, we identify the moments in the day that gave us the most life and the moments that drained us. The authors write that "the will of God is that we give and receive more love and life." Thus, noting patterns of life-giving and life-draining activities is one way that God can speak to us about who we are and what He might want for us.

Just reading this book was life-giving and inspiring. The daily examen is a practice that I can easily add to my life and already, just over the last few days of reading the book and asking myself the daily examen questions, I have found that it really does give me data about what is encouraging in my life and what isn't. Just being aware of these things is empowering. I can see how, after patterns emerge about what is life-giving/draining in my life, this practice will be helpful in making decisions or changing things so that life will be more abundant and joyful.