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
Each Friday, I participate in the meme Sleeping with Bread, started by Mary-Lue and based off the book. As Mary-Lue describes it in her introduction, just as “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.”
So with that in mind:
For what am I most grateful this past week?
1. Registering for the Hyner View Trail Challenge, a 25K trail race in the Sproul State Forest, Hyner View State Park, near Lock Haven, Pa. (more on this in an upcoming Motivation Monday post).
2. Being able to visit with friends. On Saturday, my wife and I will be going to dinner with friends from where we used to live. As we don’t have a lot of friends where we live, it is good to be able to get out of the house and spend time with friends. Being that my wife and I don’t have children and many of the people, for example, in our parish have children, we don’t have a lot of common ground with them. Also with children, the people at church often are understandably busy with doing things with them.
3. That said, being able to reconnect with friends online via such applications as Facebook has been a good thing– even if neither one of us (me or my friends) always do a good job of keeping in contact as well as we should even with the tools at our disposal.
For what am I least grateful this past week?
1. Not progressing on a story on which I’m working for a daily newspaper for which I work as a correspondent. I made no phone calls for the story and didn’t do one thing for the story besides get a list of photos of businesses that I need to take next week. I really don’t know what happened, but my motivation went out the window somehow.
2. Not sticking to my commitment to not be on the computer on Wednesdays each week, except for work-related (newspaper-related) things. Sometimes I just need to be away from the computer, because I’m either blogging myself or reading other blogs or playing games on Facebook so much that it’s almost like information overload. As a result, I don’t make time for most importantly my wife, reading books like I want to do or even myself, just being able to think about life, for example, a change in my career, which brings me to…
3. Not progressing on a change in career by pursuing anything to that end. For the past 12 years, I’ve been working in the newspaper field. However, it’s more than time for a career change, not just because newspapers are “going under,” but also because it’s just not where I want to be. Where I want to be: teaching writing at a collegiate level or being a writer/editor in another capacity besides newspapers.
I’ve also considered trying to work toward becoming a librarian, even though like newspapers, libraries are dying too, especially for lack of resources. One silver lining: this past week, I did talk to the head librarian at the local library about talking to her about what she does, and what I would need to do to pursue a career as a librarian.
Lord, first, thank you for friends that we have and also for enabling me to enjoy running (something I have been negligent in my training, but that I know you will assist me in the upcoming weeks and months).
Second, please help me cultivate those friendships we have and look to develop new ones that we might have thought of previously.
Third, help me to stay focused this week on those things which I need to get accomplished: the story and photos for the paper for the special assignment with which the editor has entrusted me; my quest for a new career, especially in setting up a person weekly to contact to help hold me accountable.
Fourth, help me to keep my commitment to stay off the computer this Wednesday, unless necessary for the paper. With Wednesday being Ash Wednesday and the first day of Lent, let this be part of my fasting this week and in the coming weeks of Lent.
In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen. †
