please pass the bread...

Meals at our house were not complete without bread. If mama didn’t make biscuits or cornbread, there would be a stack of "light bread"on the table. Daddy needed bread to sop his grits up at breakfast and his gravy at supper. Our plates weren’t licked clean. They were wiped clean with bread. GrandMary’s biscuits were the best biscuits in the world. Every day of her adult life, three times a day, she made biscuits from scratch, rolled the dough into little balls, placed them in the old iron skillet, patted them down and baked them. For many years she cooked on a wood stove and said it was the best heat for baking. She also made griddle cake cornbread. The thin cornbread batter would be poured into a round cast iron griddle cake pan, sizzling at the edges as it cooked and browned around the edges. My Grandma and mama made yeast bread, fragrant and hearty, best home deodorizer in the world. To come home from school to the smell of fresh, hot bread, grab a slice and cover it with butter, eat the chewy crust and the soft center, was and is still one of my sweetest memories.
Our bread choices were limited as I was growing up. We had cornbread in various forms... muffins, griddle cakes, sticks, sheet... and biscuits... not canned but the real McCoy... and yeast bread... rolls, loaves that were homemade and store bought. In those three types of bread were endless variations. We were never bored with our bread. We made it and if it was good, we gave thanks. If it was flat or heavy, we gave thanks and ate it anyway. Bread was important and we lived the phrase "Bread is the staff of life"... please pass the butter and the blackberry jelly.
As our covenant group gathered around the communion table last night, I was struck by the bread that sat on the table. It came from a bakery and was real bread with a solid crust. As we prepared for communion, we named the broken places in our bodies and named those we knew who were broken and hurting in some way. In the silence, Pat began to break the bread, speaking the ancient words... "This is my body, broken for you". The bread was resilient and crusty, resisting being broken and torn. As we passed the bread saying to one another "This is the Body of Christ, broken for you", the bread was still full of texture and strength. It took some effort to become and share the Body of Christ with each other.
The beloved community can only come into being when we are willing to be broken for one another, be the staff of life, make ourselves vulnerable and weak so that new strength might come from the Body of Christ. All of us have invisible wounds. Some are more easily identified by labels... divorced person, single parent, gay, old, lesbian, widow, abused child, sick, bisexual, rich, poor or transgendered... but the hurts often lie deep in the darkness of our fear, never seeing the light of communion.
When you see me and do not know me, you see a woman who wears hats on Sunday, dressed to the nines, seemingly articulate and self assured. I am a woman who has a loving marriage and children who come home with our grandchildren most of the time because they choose to out of love not guilt. I live on the farm of my dreams in a house we built that is the home of my dreams. My real self is far more complicated than the one dimensional image you see when you do not know me.
I wear hats on Sunday because it is my connection to a woman who loved me without reservation, my Grandma. I play dress up because it is fun and helps me remember clothes are necessary but can also express some of my personality. I have spent years finding my voice, finding ways to speak my truth without dissolving in tears and chin quivers. My marriage is both a gift and hard work My first marriage ended when my husband was killed in Viet Nam. He was 21 and I was 20. That was my introduction to the real world. I give thanks for the marriage Michael and I have that has seen us through some very hard times. My sister’s suicide left invisible scars and unanswered questions that will be with me until the day I die. Our children struggle and suffer like I did. I can no longer kiss the boo boos and make them better. All I can do is listen and love and show up. The farm and house of our dreams came after many years of moving from place to place, remodeling old houses, living in cities, raising our family and waiting for the right time and place. Because we could not afford nor did we desire a home built by strangers, we were our own contractors. We knew every workman and woman who helped us and we were covered in paint and dirt and dust for the whole process. The mistakes are ours as well as the successes. My life, like the communion bread, has not been easy, one joyful song after another. Neither has your life.
It is in the sharing of our brokeness, whatever that might be, that we begin to catch a glimpse of what heaven might be. No one’s grief or pain is greater than anothers. We all fall short, do not measure up, struggle to find affirmation of our soul selves. In some strange way, the Spirit of Light can never move through Communion until we own and name our darkness to ourselves and with each other. Forgiveness without confession is like store bought bread. It falls apart and dissolves easily. Confession creates the yeasty, crusty, resilient soul that knows the dark places can always be transformed when brought into the Light. Breaking bread with one another is never easy. It is not supposed to be. We are transformed by our pain and suffering, not consumed by it, when we can be the Bread of Heaven for one another. May it be so.