What do Jesus' parables on yeast have to do with our starter and with our spiritual lives? Before we can put our sourdough starter to use, we must learn how to care for it so that it remains strong and healthy. Similarly, the spiritual disciplines foster a healthy environment for us individually and in community.
Read MoreOn this third day of Lent, we don't yet see many signs of life from our sourdough starter. But we continue to feed it in faith that the yeasts are slowly working their way through. The process of preparing our starter and our workspace for baking bread is called mise en place. The Christian practice of confession is a spiritual form of mise en place, acknowledging our own inabilities so that God can restore us and transform us, bring us back to life to love and serve and feed the world.
Read MoreOn Ash Wednesday, we reflect on the brokenness of the world and our own finite selves. But death, and with it a return to the soil, is only the first step in resurrection. So today we also mix the dry dust of flour with water in order to bring it back to life as a sourdough starter.
Read MoreThis Lent, explore the Gospel story woven through the process of bread making. Over the course of seven weeks, you will build a starter, learn to bake sourdough, enjoy some tasty bread for yourself, and give several loaves away to friends and neighbors.
Read MoreFred Bahnson's 2013 book Soil and Sacrament shares his journey to finding God in the soil. He tells the story of four different faith communities using food to connect with God, each of which he visited during a corresponding liturgical season. Bahnson not only opens readers eyes to these unique organizations, he commissions them to interact with the soil as a sacrament as well.
Read MoreThis week Father Gregory Boyle and his friends David and Ruben travelled from Los Angeles to Boston to share the story of Homeboy Industries. Their call to fostering kinship with those on the margins by opening yourself up to be reached was just the balm I needed in the tension of the present political climate.
Read MoreI'll be quite frank, I'm struggling these days. I'm tasked with the professional need to "build a platform" in the midst of a painful cultural and political climate. I'm called to speak within the tensions of many disparate communities who all identify as Christian, and I struggle to know how to do it well. So rather than feign that my message is simple and clear, I'm here to tell you the truth: I'm struggling. And I kind of hope you are too.
Read MoreI visited Garden Church, a Swedenborgian church San Pedro, California, in pouring rain. While my experience of their worship might not have been quite the norm, I was moved by our meditation on Psalm 46. It is because of communities like theirs that I have hope this Psalm's promise rings true.
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