Before I dashed off to my college classes each morning, I had a 10-minute oasis of breakfast time around 6:30. With a modest-size repast of tea and lemon, bagel with peanut butter or cream cheese + a piece of fruit, I told God, “Thank you for this food and the leisure to enjoy it in.” Why would I even think to call it leisure? I had just 10 minutes before I bolted out the door, joined the traffic on Beach Boulevard, and rolled my car onto campus at 7:00 a.m. Busy day ahead!

Now in my writing phase of life, at 7:00 I may tune in to  20-minute yoga session, pre- or post-breakfast. It just depends.

But now my breakfasts are more abundant and leisurely. Well, . . . most of the time.

Yes, a nod to PaDutch taste buds - pickled eggs

Yes, a nod to PA Dutch taste buds – pickled eggs

Breakfast time includes a spiritual dimension:

First, CLEANSING . . .

WatermellonPureHeart

Then, moments of SILENCE

Silence, however brief (then) or longer (now). . . requires meaningful retreat from the hurly-burly busy-ness of life.

In his memoir, The Chosen, Chaim Potok’s main character, Reuven, speaks of the enlightenment his friend’s father, Reb Saunders, a Hasidic rabbi, imparts about the restorative value of long stretches of quiet: “. . . “I’ve begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it.” And later Reuven’s brilliant friend Danny admits: “My father taught me with silence, . . . “ so I would not grow up with a mind having no soul.

Now take a deep breath . . . read s l o w l y :

When you are faithful in [silent meditation] . . .

you will slowly experience yourself in a deep way.

Because in this useless hour in which

you do nothing “important” or urgent

you have to come to terms with your basic powerlessness,

you have to feel your fundamental inability

to solve your or other people’s problems

or to change the world.

When you do not avoid that experience but live through it,

you will find out that your many projects, plans,

and obligations becomes less urgent, crucial, and important

and lose their power over you.

Abbot John Eudes Bamberger to Henry Nouwen  (Quoted in Fil Anderson’s Running on Empty, a book about living restoratively in “a world stuck on fast forward.” 73)

Next, MEDITATION . . .

Take another deep breath, read, and reflect

Patrick reading in Book of Luke

Patrick reading in Book of Luke

Grandson Patrick, my less pious stand-in for “Meditation.” He is reading from his Grandpa’s Bible the story of one of the shipwrecks of Apostle Paul he learned about in Vacation Bible School.

 Happy to say, I haven’t heard the phone ring yet, so there’s even time for another cup!

Seen in Santa Cruz Diner, CA

Seen in Santa Cruz Diner, CA

OOPS!

You were waiting for an OOPS! and here it comes. Life doesn’t always go as planned. Interruptions happen. And frequently. There is often a need to revert to Plan B. (See again Southern Friends Meet PA Dutch Dish)

Fil (really, not a misspelling) Anderson, again, in Running on Empty quotes Author Robert Benson, Living Prayer (page 81) who has devised a theory of life he dubs the “Rule of 21.”

Twenty-one minutes is the amount of time that one can go without being interrupted by a telephone call, a knock at the door, or an attack from cyberspace . . . .

Twenty-one days seems to be the maximum number of days that one’s life can go smoothly. The average is four, but the limit is twenty-one I think. It’s hard to live for more than twenty-one days without a car breaking down, a trip being cancelled, a family member getting sick, a pet dying, a tire going flat, a deadline being missed, or some other thing that scatters all of one’s otherwise neatly arranged ducks.

While I’m writing this post, there have been several hiccups in the rhythm of my own life. Specters in the form of medical, institutional, and financial needs have reared their unwelcome heads either in my own or our extended family. And it’s been, I gasp, about 21 hours — give or take a few!

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Here’s the menu. Choose one or two!

Do you eat breakfast? Is it a meal eaten on the run? More leisurely?

What are your spiritual adaptations before, during, or after breakfast?

What do you do when your plans go awry?  Share a sure-fire coping strategy.