Fridays on Food and Faith

I've decided that I needed a way to focus and devote more time to the part of my journey that I feel has been left a little to the way-side. After all, baking and eating bread is the most delicious part, but I want to also rediscover the spiritual side of my bread and all my food. So, from now on, every Friday will have a post revolving around some aspect of Food and Faith. And yes, I do like the alliteration as well.

For today, to start, I want to share a quote from Wendell Berry I read in the book that I am using to guide my journey: Food and Faith, edited and compiled by Michael Schut.

"We cannot live harmlessly or strictly at our own expense; we depend upon other creatures and survive by their deaths. To live, we must daily break the body and shed the blood of creation. The point is, when we do this knowingly, lovingly, skillfully, reverently, it is a sacrament; when we do it ignorantly, greedily, clumsily, destructively, it is a desecration... in such desecration, we condemn ourselves to a spiritual and moral loneliness, and others to want."

-Wendell Berry 

To view eating as a sacrifice and gift on the part of creation reaffirms my belief in supporting local, good, clean, and fair foods and reminds me in new and profound ways why we pray before every meal. I feel that giving thanks for our food should not only be thanking God, the Creator, but also thanking the creation itself for the life-giving gift of nourishment. 

Today, thank your food for the sacrifice it made.