I also like the bread-cheese connection, but I confess the bread-body-spirit connection has always escaped me. I feel I am very bad at Holy Communion, because I can not bridge the connection between bread/ wine with body/ blood. It feels like a spiritual disability.
I love bread, too, Diana. Good slow German style bread :-) Hildegard of Bingen praises it as superfood. Back then, good bread was slow bread, produced over days in this mystic process of the dough coming alive. Thus for Hildegard bread baking holds all the Christian mystery, too. The breath of life (my 5 year old is fascinated of watching the dough breathe and bubble), the raising, the tomb and the womb, the heat and the transformation. Bread baking is my favorite teacher of the sacred - so thank you so much for the reminder. 🙏 I also love a really good crust, too! 🥖
I love bread too!!! your Sunday musings and other offerings always nourish my spirit. Thank you Diana. I hope you and Brian and whoever else was in your party enjoyed the wildness of Wyoming. I landed in Casper, Wyoming 18 years ago. It is a fascinating state.
There is something very simple, yet powerful about this moment. A celebrated teacher is doing amazing things. He’s saying amazing things, too. He talks about life-giving bread, and He doesn’t mean nutritionally.
It’s safe to assume a few of them thought they’d never have to go to the market or bake a load of bread again, but some would have known instinctively that Jesus was offering something spectacular.
My favorite bread is Honey Whole Wheat, from the More With Less cookbook. I've been making it since the early 1980's, and it always satisfies. In thanks for today's post, here is the recipe:
Honey Whole Wheat Bread
Combine in mixer bowl: 3 c. whole wheat flour, 1/2 C. nonfat dry milk, 1 T. salt, 2 pkg. dry yeast
Heat in saucepan until warm:
3 c. water or potato water, 1/2 C. honey, 2 T. oil
Pour warm (not hot) liquid over flour mixture. Beat with electric mixer 3 minutes. Stir in:
1 additional C. whole wheat flour, 4-4 1/2 C. white flour
Knead 5 minutes, using additional white flour if necessary. Place in greased bowl, turn, let rise until double in bulk. Punch down, divide dough in half and shape into loaves. Place in greased 9x5" bread
pans. Cover and "I,et rise 40-45 minutes. Bake at 375 for 40-45 minutes.
What struck me was the change of verb tense from past tense -ˆwas not Moses-“ to present tense “-it is my Father-“. I don’t know enough Greek or about verb tenses to know if the reference to “my Father” is present tense or present perfect tense or if there is some present and future tense involved.
The “tense” doesn’t really matter to me. What does matter is that Christ is speaking to me, right now, today: ***I am being given life.***
Beautiful bread nourishing reflections & shared poetry…thanks! How you now have experienced the skill of fly casting needing practice to learn…my husband took lessons with our son, eschewing ever after the kind of fishing he’d learned growing up using bait or lures, for the gentle art of offering a fly to a rising trout. Nonetheless, how you must’ve enjoyed Brian’s lessons & presence at the Wyoming stream!! Such thrillingly gorgeous mountainous territory. I was green not to be there with you, when you posted the photos! Keep nourishing us with your carefully honed reflections, Diana…I so appreciate!!!
Love this. The bread of life, the living water, the lights of the world, the salt of the earth.
A truly insightful filling out of "John's" cryptic style making possible our participation in the story. Very good.
This was fun! Thanks for all the metaphors. I like bread, too.
Stick around to find out what it means to "believe" and how we get this bread of life
Thank you. Hopefully you will be able to reopen the comments after the election. Our ragged democracy may survive inshallah.
I also like the bread-cheese connection, but I confess the bread-body-spirit connection has always escaped me. I feel I am very bad at Holy Communion, because I can not bridge the connection between bread/ wine with body/ blood. It feels like a spiritual disability.
Enjoyed the humor. I, too, could live on bread, butter, cheese - oh, pizza!
I love bread, too, Diana. Good slow German style bread :-) Hildegard of Bingen praises it as superfood. Back then, good bread was slow bread, produced over days in this mystic process of the dough coming alive. Thus for Hildegard bread baking holds all the Christian mystery, too. The breath of life (my 5 year old is fascinated of watching the dough breathe and bubble), the raising, the tomb and the womb, the heat and the transformation. Bread baking is my favorite teacher of the sacred - so thank you so much for the reminder. 🙏 I also love a really good crust, too! 🥖
❤️
I love bread too!!! your Sunday musings and other offerings always nourish my spirit. Thank you Diana. I hope you and Brian and whoever else was in your party enjoyed the wildness of Wyoming. I landed in Casper, Wyoming 18 years ago. It is a fascinating state.
"I think I'll stick around.... I want to see what rises."
😀
I love your writing and hear echoes in my own, so I thought I would share this week's blog. Thanks, Rita
https://godcomesby.com/2024/08/04/whos-vetting-this-damn-mess/
There is something very simple, yet powerful about this moment. A celebrated teacher is doing amazing things. He’s saying amazing things, too. He talks about life-giving bread, and He doesn’t mean nutritionally.
It’s safe to assume a few of them thought they’d never have to go to the market or bake a load of bread again, but some would have known instinctively that Jesus was offering something spectacular.
My favorite bread is Honey Whole Wheat, from the More With Less cookbook. I've been making it since the early 1980's, and it always satisfies. In thanks for today's post, here is the recipe:
Honey Whole Wheat Bread
Combine in mixer bowl: 3 c. whole wheat flour, 1/2 C. nonfat dry milk, 1 T. salt, 2 pkg. dry yeast
Heat in saucepan until warm:
3 c. water or potato water, 1/2 C. honey, 2 T. oil
Pour warm (not hot) liquid over flour mixture. Beat with electric mixer 3 minutes. Stir in:
1 additional C. whole wheat flour, 4-4 1/2 C. white flour
Knead 5 minutes, using additional white flour if necessary. Place in greased bowl, turn, let rise until double in bulk. Punch down, divide dough in half and shape into loaves. Place in greased 9x5" bread
pans. Cover and "I,et rise 40-45 minutes. Bake at 375 for 40-45 minutes.
What struck me was the change of verb tense from past tense -ˆwas not Moses-“ to present tense “-it is my Father-“. I don’t know enough Greek or about verb tenses to know if the reference to “my Father” is present tense or present perfect tense or if there is some present and future tense involved.
The “tense” doesn’t really matter to me. What does matter is that Christ is speaking to me, right now, today: ***I am being given life.***
Beautiful bread nourishing reflections & shared poetry…thanks! How you now have experienced the skill of fly casting needing practice to learn…my husband took lessons with our son, eschewing ever after the kind of fishing he’d learned growing up using bait or lures, for the gentle art of offering a fly to a rising trout. Nonetheless, how you must’ve enjoyed Brian’s lessons & presence at the Wyoming stream!! Such thrillingly gorgeous mountainous territory. I was green not to be there with you, when you posted the photos! Keep nourishing us with your carefully honed reflections, Diana…I so appreciate!!!
John's Neverending Ode to Bread
God, we were so young! And now I’m old,
old and impossibly hungry. Hungry for an end,
for a beginning. I sit here setting down
The Word, while scents and sounds of Patmos
drift around me. Cry of gulls, savor of crushed thyme,
women’s voices, the yeasty smell of rising bread.
So hungry these days; food runs through my old frame,
won’t linger, can’t nourish. My bones and bowels like
water. My daily bread is memory: loaves and fish on
that hillside high above Tiberias. My God, the abundance!
Martha’s barley loaf, tough horse bread from the market.
Above all, that bread shared at our last meal. He said
he was our bread, our wine. Bread that we broke with him
was more than bread. Was life, life eternal. I gnaw daily
on the remembrance of him, his words, his works, his
presence, his promises. Maranatha, Lord Jesus!