Bread & Wine

Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.

—1 Corinthians 10:17

I’m a bread person—crusty, golden baguette; hearty, grainy, seeded loaves; thin, crispy pizza crust—all of it. Flaky, buttery croissants; chewy pita; tortillas, warm and fragrant, blistered by heat. Whenever my jeans are too tight, I’m reminded that I know better than to love bread the way I do, but love is blind, and certainly beyond reason. And I am a wine person—the blood-red and liquid gold, the clink and glamour of tall-stemmed glasses, and the musty, rich, almost mushroom-y smell.

More than that, I am a bread-and-wine person. By that I mean that I’m a Christian, a person of the body and blood, a person of the bread and wine. I recognize the two as food and drink, and at the very same time, I recognize them as something much greater—mystery and tradition and symbol. Bread is bread, and wine is wine, but bread-and-wine is another thing entirely. The two together are the sacred and the material at once, heaven and earth, the divine and the daily.