Whilst on a retreat, at the end of a beautiful exchange, the man I was speaking with experienced an image of a sandwich but was unsure quite what it meant.
What immediately came to mind was how we’re often so focused on the content of life—the filling—that we completely overlook the bread—our boundless, essential nature—within which the ‘filling’ of life appears. But in living this way something seems amiss, we feel a sense of dis-ease, of incompleteness. We may try to change our life circumstances, change the flavours, but that sense of lack remains, for you simply cannot have a filling without any bread!
Then we get interested in spirituality and become so focused on discovering the ‘bread’ that now we neglect the filling—our fragile human nature. But in living this way we feel empty and hollow, still feeling all that yearning, still feeling that same sense of lack.
Ultimately we realise that wholeness is not exclusively the ‘filling’, nor exclusively the ‘bread’, but the complete sandwich! That’s when we finally savour the full, rich flavour of living.
Just as we were all feeling rather satisfied with this grand interpretation, a mischievous snigger rose up from someone else in the group. When invited to share their amusement they replied, “I was just thinking maybe he’s hungry?”
