Daily Bread
I had a beautiful exchange with a CrossWalker a few weeks ago. They were dropping off some fresh vegetables they had recently harvested from their personal garden. This is fairly common at CrossWalk, which is just lovely – people sharing with others from their abundance with joy. Usually some is offered to our Food Pantry, some to CrossWalkers hanging around, and the rest to people coming into our space for recovery meetings. What was especially memorable about this drop off of zuchinni, tomatoes, and more, was the CrossWalker’s verbal and physical expression when I thanked them for their generosity. As their face displayed a look of deep, humble awe, they said, “It’s just so amazing. I spend time in my garden and am overwhelmed at the incredible reality of the planet we live on. I plant seeds and get food. I am blown away all the time.” This CrossWalker’s reaction was beautiful. And appropriate. Yet how often is the magic lost on us of our planet’s capacity to provide food for all of its inhabitants?
The middle line of the Lord’s Prayer taught by Jesus is, “Give us this day our daily bread.” Many of us are so familiar with the prayer as a whole and this line in particular that it leaves us unaffected. Take a beat and give it some thought. My first reaction is that it seems kind of rude, even demanding, ordering God to provide for us. In context, however, such a prayer was common and not considered inappropriate or offensive.
Asking for bread brings the prayer down to earth, doesn’t it? You can’t get much earthier than food created from the earth itself. In uttering the prayer, we draw our attention to the bread and to the creation that sustains us. If we pause before we eat and remember this line, we just might find ourselves living with a little more magic in our lives. How much more joyful and grateful would we feel each day if we took just long enough to recognize the miracle that is food? Something shifts inside us when we literally ground ourselves with the knowledge that we live in an extremely hospitable world.
I have a few fruit trees in my tiny backyard. My Myer Lemon tree is a rock star, producing lemons nearly year-round. As a guy who grew up in the Midwest where citrus trees don’t grow, it’s a kick to just waltz out to our tree when I need some lemon juice for something. I know several CrossWalkers that feast on all sorts of vegetables throughout the summer, pulled straight from their gardens. Most of us, however, purchase our food from a market or restaurants. Give us this day our daily bread not only focuses our attention on the miracle of food, but it also helps us realize how many hands are involved in bringing the food from the farm to the table. Brazillian Catholic priest and liberation theologian Leonard Boff notes:
Beneath the bread that we consume daily is hidden a whole network of anonymous relationships of which we need to remind ourselves. Before it reaches our table it receives the labor of many hands. The seed is planted in the ground; it has to be tended as it grows. Many hands harvest the grain or maneuver the powerful machinery. Many other hands store the grain and make the bread. Then there are the thousands of distribution points. In all this we find the greatness and the wretchedness of human nature. There can be relationships involving exploitation. Tears are shed over every loaf that we so calmly eat, but we also sense the fellowship and the sharing. Daily bread encompasses the entire human universe in its lights and shadows.
We all know that it takes many, many hands and much collective effort to grow food and get it into our bellies. It also takes lots of effort from everyone to work to generate income to buy that food. The network of busyness is mind-blowing, isn’t it? We can get so distracted by the ugliest of news from around the world and right here at home that we can fail to appreciate the greater reality in which we live. We are connected to the whole. We are part of creation. We survive because of that cooperation. We are not alone. We cannot survive alone. Taking time to remember this can be incredibly, surprisingly healing, helpful, and hopeful.
Challenge. Before you take a bite of your next meal, pause to reflect on the magical world we live in that allows us to survive. Take just a beat to be aware of all the cooperative effort that took place to get that meal before you – mostly people you don’t know. Simply say, “I am so grateful. Thank you.” Try this exercise on for a full day, then a week, then a month, and see what it does for you.
Bread as Metaphor. The above would be enough to chew on, literally. Being more present in our magical world and appreciative of the interconnectedness of all living beings and the cooperation between the sentient among us makes life better. Yet there is another level to appreciate here. Aramaic scholar Neil Douglas-Klotznotes the following regarding the original language of Jesus and it’s broader connotations:
A word very rich in meaning, lachma is both ‘bread” and “understanding” – food for all forms of growth and for elementary life in general. It is derived from a more basic root relating to the divine feminine which pictures growing vigor, verdancy, warmth, passion, possibility, and all instruments of this generative power. This root became the word hochma, translated as “Holy Wisdom” in Proverbs. Later this root would be rendered by the Greek word Sophia, referring to an embodiment of all feminine wisdom...
This part of the prayer reminds us in many ways that sometimes what we need is not only the grand picture of unity and God’s creation, but also the “next step”—just food or understanding for this moment. In the first half of the prayer we remember the One and feel our blessing from the cosmos. In the second half we begin a new cycle of blessing, but in an even more embodied and practical way: we face each other and remember the divine Many. This section begins from the earth up. The prayer pushes us beyond an introverted spirituality to consider everything in our dealings with others. In reminding us of “understanding,” the prayer points to what always stands under and supports us—the Mother Earth. We can make that support more real by feeding each other. We can also treasure the source of that bread by not hoarding or demanding from the earth more than we need, by respecting the source of our most basic support.
There is a lot here to digest, right? I really resonate with the idea that bread can also be translated as “understanding” or “wisdom.” Just as uttering the prayer focuses our attention on literal bread/food, when we consider its metaphor meaning, it has a similar affect. It is all too easy to live life on autopilot. We get into our rhythms and routines and ruts which obviously work for us on some level. Yet over time, the mundanity of routine can blind us to realities right before our eyes and deafen us to the sound of silence in which God so often speaks.
Appealing to God to provide wisdom for the moment serves to sharpen our attention so as not to miss some of the constant content coming from our environment and experiences. In truth, just as it is impossible to stream all of the entertainment content available to us today, so it is with all that Life/God has to teach us. Sometimes the TV is on purely as background noise. Life is, too, at times. We have the choice to pay attention to what is happening right in front of us.
Because I believe that the core essence of God is Love (or Shalom), I think the daily, necessary wisdom or understandingalways offered is going to be related to Love or Shalom. Coupled with the literal application of this verse, we should not be surprised if shalom-related themes come to mind when thinking about bread. Gregory of Nyssa (335-394 CE), early Christian bishop and saint, noted: “You are the true director of your prayer if your abundance does not come from what belongs to others; if your income is not derived from tears; if no one goes hungry because of your satiety; if no one groans on account of your fullness. Indeed, this is the bread from God, the fruit of justice, the stalk of peace, the bread that is pure and unmixed with the seeds of weeds.” Food for thought, right?
The sharing of literal bread demands wisdom that is cultivated through seeking metaphorical bread. As we enjoy literal bread, the whisper of shalom will naturally lead us to wonder if everyone is enjoying literal bread like we are. Realizing our connectedness to everyone and everything has a way of generating compassionate curiosity regarding all we are related to. All of this informed and inspired Neil Douglas-Klotz to offer this interpretation of this line of the prayer:
An Aramaic Interpretation of Give us this day our daily bread:
Grant what we need each day in bread and insight:
subsistence for the call of
growing life.
Give us the food we need to grow
through each new day,
through each illumination of life’s needs.
Let the measure of our need be earthiness:
give all things simple, verdant,
passionate.
Produce in us, for us, the possible:
each only-human step toward home
lit up.
Help us fulfill what lies within
the circle of our lives: each day we ask
no more, no less.
Animate the earth within us: we then
feel the Wisdom underneath
supporting all.
Generate through us the bread of life:
we hold only what is asked to feed
the next mouth.
Grant what we need each day in bread and insight.
Challenge: As you enjoy your literal “bread” at mealtime, full of awe and gratitude, consider what “bread of understanding or wisdom” is before you to partake. We don’t often need to think very hard, as sometimes the thing we need to sit with is right in front of our noses. It could be something that just happened to us. Or a conflict with someone. Or an image that is before us. Sit with it, listening for Shalom’s instruction. Learning to practice this helps us be more present in every moment of our lives, open to increased understanding along the way, which leads to a more fulfilling life.
As you consider all that these seven words offer, may the following benediction of sorts from English Baptist pastor working with the urban poor, F.B. Myer (1847-1929) allow you to soar higher and live more deeply going forward:
Answer this prayer so far as you may; and just because the world is so hungry, and weary, and famishing, go forth and be its breadwinners and its breadgivers. As far as you can, help to alleviate the despair and hopelessness, the misery and the sin of people, by passing on the Bread of God, the Bread of Life, the Bread of Love, the Bread of Hope, upon which you feed. Share your last crust with another. If you get a glint of light, flash it on. If you get a new truth, communicate it. If you get a baptism of the Holy Spirit, never rest until others rejoice in it too.