Give us the bread that will sustain our hearts
Bread. Everywhere good bread. Even in gas stations on the Autobahn, the bread is as good as you would find in any German bakery. Kaiser rolls, Vollkornbrot, Schwarzwald Kruste, all there with good cheeses and sausages. All I could say was wow, despite how inadequate the word seems. I came home from Germany and Austria pondering how I enjoyed baking European dark and whole-grain breads when I worked as artisan baker at Mountain View Market a decade ago. So I made sure I had enough special ingredients — whole grains, seeds, flours — and I made a couple loaves of Vollkornbrot, which contains heaps of grains of wheat or rye softened by soaking in a slack dough for a full day. The resultant loaves are so dense a few slices are almost a meal. Lay on some delicatessen meats and cheeses and you are a king or queen in that moment.
Melchizedek, that mysterious figure mentioned once in the Old Testament, brings out bread and wine to fete Abraham. Three strange figures appear before the tent of Abraham and Sarah and he asks her to quickly make bread for the guests. Hospitality and bread go together into the far reaches of human memory. Ancient Egyptian ovens have been made on the basis of pictographic descriptions and they work. Jesus imagines heaven as a festival at which there is plenty of bread and wine. Several of his parables use this imagery. The compiler of the Proverbs says, “keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches but give me only my daily bread.” Let the Psalmist have the last word in this list: “(You have given) wine that gladdens human hearts, oil to make their faces shine, and bread that sustains their hearts.” Right. Bread and wine and oil. The basics but also the finest of sustenance.
Baking bread sustains my heart. I had to photograph a sign in a restaurant kitchen in Garmisch-Partenkirchen. In translation it read, “eating is a necessity; enjoying it is an art.” Bread is to be enjoyed, not simply eaten as necessity. I learned this from the late French baker Lionel Poilâne, who in one important day taught me that you can transform necessity into both pleasure and art. European bakeries, especially the German and Austrian ones I love, answer both the necessity and the need for enjoyment.
Craftsmanship of any kind carried out at a high level of excellence and skill is a spiritual activity. It doesn’t matter what the craft is; the experience is common to all. When done with mastery, every craft inspires a sense of personal achievement that enlivens and uplifts the human spirit not only of the maker but of the consumer. Anything that brings such experience must be connected to and a bearer of the universal Spirit.
Furthermore, all crafts that bring this experience of Spirit are at once sensual. They appeal to the eye, to the ear, the nose, the mouth. The spiritual is visible in and through the medium. It comes as a surplus of meaning beyond the tools and the material and the design used. Anyone who has ever contemplated a truly great piece of furniture would know that the full meaning of the work is above and beyond and yet within the material. The full meaning comes as a bonus added to the work, and mysterious because unexpected. All I was doing was eating good bread at breakfast in Germany, but the act carried meaning beyond the loaves. It was a spiritual experience, and I always hope it is that for all those who taste my bread as well.
Fr. Gabriel Rochelle is pastor of St Anthony of the Desert Orthodox Mission, Las Cruces. The church web site is www.stanthonylc.org. We welcome visitors.
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