Oprah exclaims, “But I can have bread” when she talks about a popular diet, and I think about Eggsclusive Café’s sourdough loaf slathered with butter, and the yeast rolls Bruce bakes to a crispy crust and air pockets of floured goodness. The house smells sweet.
I think about how Jesus called himself the bread of life, how -- even if you don’t believe in Jesus -- there’s something to this bread image that is ancient and holy. It’s what holds our peanut butter and jelly together.
Then there’s the Jesus story where a few disciples walk along a road, desolate and befuddled about Jesus’ dying mixed in with the rumors he’d come back to life. They didn’t recognize Him when he did his rabbi thing by explaining the scriptures.
No, it’s when he broke the bread that they saw him. Then he was gone. I wonder if that’s when we see Jesus, or goodness, or that quick fellowship between people that whispers of the divine and also the ordinary.
I think about the dough, simply made -- flour, yeast, milk, water, sugar -- the dough rising and punched down again. Then rising again. And finally shaped into a fragrant loaf and baked.
Isn’t life like that? We rise and then the air is punched out of us, only to rise again, and then finally to be baked into this wonderful bread that nourishes others?
I’m Katie Andraski, and this is my perspective.
