” I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry again. Whoever believes in me will never be thirsty ” John 6:35
There is such a vast difference between earthly bread and heavenly bread. Ordinary bread may be able to sustain us on earth but cannot sustain life in the presence of death. Heavenly bread sustains us eternally.
I am obsessed with bread. At this present moment I have a baguette, a seeded rye loaf and a sliced seed loaf in my bread drawer. I have a homemade breadmaker mixed wholewheat and rye loaf in my fridge. In the freezer I have several breads that have been cut in two for me to take out a piece in case I have no fresh bread at the ready. As if. On my kitchen countertop I have a sourdough starter that I constantly refresh so that it is ready to be used in a bake. All these breads, all these choices and yet I only have a sliver here and a sliver there at lunchtime.
How is this obsession working for me? The act of buying the bread is immensely pleasing to me because it feeds my eyes and desires visually. I create within me this illusion that I will partake in the enjoyment of eating it. Indeed I do but it is so sparing that it only just manages to address my desire. My fantasty is actually very different. I envisage a slice of toast, dripping with butter and honey, crisp crusts and warm core oozing with fragrance and melting topping. I salivate when I think of a toasted sandwich with melted cheese, the outside of each slice brushed with melted butter before toasting or grilling . I do occasionally allow myself a slice of toast in the morning , with peanut butter, honey, cottage cheese and sliced banana. Its heavenly. However, the toast will always be as thin as possible and the toppings will be the bare minimum.
Growing up, when it was only my mother and myself at home over the weekends, we would buy large baguettes – hers was white and mine was wholewheat. We would heat them in the oven and our lunch would consist of pieces of baguette with butter, honey and cheese. Looking back at a childhood where most ’ unhealthy ’ foods were denied to me, this strikes me as an anomaly and so out of keeping with the rigid practives I was subjected to. Its actually quite bizarre. I would then force myself to swim 100 lengths of the pool in a vague attempt to purge myself of this high caloric load and feelings of disgust about my greed.
This no doubt led to another even more bizarre habit and practice during my second year at university. I broke up with my boyfriend, lived alone in a flat and over the course of 3 months I put on 30 pounds of weight. My lunchtime routine was always the same. It consisted of half a loaf of a bog-standard commercial loaf of brown bread, heated in the oven before I extracted the soft inner dough. I then proceeded to eat all the dough as it was, nothing added, before throwing away the outer shell or crust.
The question I need to ask myself is why is bread so important to me? If my association with it from my youth is negative because it is perceived to have been the root of weight gain and feelings of guilt, then why do I not abandon it entirely? On a basic level I could say its because I like it too much to let it go. It is also such a vital component of our staple diet and this school of thought is evident in the plethora of bread choices available to us , all the marketing and advertising that we are bombarded with and its inclusion in daily diets and food choices. It has been on this earth since time began although the way it is now produced is so far removed from bibilical times its virtually unrecognisable. There is a return to practices of old with the sourdough phenomon that has arisen in recent years. As restaurants, stores and shops are closing at a dizzying speed, yet there are more coffee shops and bread shops springing up than are actually needed. With the advent of the war in Ukraine and the supply of grain being heavily compromised, the price of a loaf is going through the roof and yet we all still demand and buy this food item. Its clear that we just cannot do without it.
Does this earthly bread fulfil all our needs? Certainly some of them but it could never feed us sufficiently enough to provide us with anything more than a physical ( and somewhat psychological ) satisfaction and pleasure. The true bread of life, given from above, the bread that feeds the soul – the bread that is always readily available and freely given, this Divine bread should be what I seek instead of wasting precious time chasing after the perfect earthly loaf.
