The sleepy-looking cartoon character rises from his breakfast table and mumbles, "And now, having satisfied one hundred per cent of my daily requirements, I am returning to bed." Lee Lorenz, in The New Yorker, October 27, 1975. Do we sometimes leave our spiritual "breakfast"—our morning prayer and study of the Bible Lesson In the Christian Science Quarterly.—with a similar yawning indifference to the day's prospects?
"To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings," Science and Health, p. vii. read the promising first words of Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy. We are never promised that those who hurry through their prayer and spiritual study and then go back to sleep mentally (or physically) will be rewarded. Yet how easy it is for us to fall into the trap either of complacent self-congratulation over having started the day well (as we see it) or of self-condemnation for having failed again to pray or read the lesson.
For some time I felt frustrated by my tendency to fall into both these pits. Whenever I had some free time, my prayer or spiritual study often was followed by a lengthy nap. I might have been dreaming my way to heavenly heights, but my head lay still on the pillow.
