Daily Bread and Mindfulness
| As a kid, when I would recite the words, “…give us this day our daily bread,” my mind made sense of that strange phrase by interpreting it as ‘give us what we deserve today’. It wasn’t until much later that I associated ‘daily bread’ with the Israelites in the desert receiving manna from heaven. Even then, that revelation didn’t do me much good, because I didn’t understand why God wouldn’t give the Israelites more than one day’s food. Why not bake a loaf of bread for sandwiches for the whole week? Reading the story (see Exodus Chapter 16), it felt like God maybe had ulterior motives – keeping the people down, dependent, subservient – if they messed up today, they might not get that ‘daily bread’ tomorrow… It was hard for me at the time to hold the image of an ultimately generous, all-loving God in the same frame as the jealous God of retribution (heck, it’s difficult for me now). Even so, I had a sense that there was something mysterious going on, that God would send manna each day, such that if anyone hoarded more than their daily share, they couldn’t gain from it – it would go bad by the next day. As I’ve gone through life’s trials as we all do, I sometimes coach myself to ‘trust the process’; just keep putting one foot in front of the other in a sense and leave the outcomes to God. It is a very human thing to plan, to extrapolate today’s results and project them into the future – if I do X, how much money will I have in the bank by the end of the year, or how long will it take to pay off that credit card? I have a feeling it is a more spiritual, or divine thing to live in what Richard Rohr calls “the naked now”. Maybe I can find a way to focus more attention on what I am doing today, now, and leave the worries of tomorrow to a God who knows that I need all these things. (Luke 12:22-32) Maybe the wisdom of praying every day for our daily bread is more than a metaphor for the Israelites and their manna. Perhaps those of us who are prone to worry can learn to pray for our daily bread, breathe, and be present for whatever today brings. Peace, Scott Zimmerman |
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