 |
| |
| |
|
Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion
|
|
|
Average Rating:  out of 26 Reviews
|
Price: $24.95
|
|
Sale: $11.00
|
| |
|
Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
|
|
EAN (European Article Number): 9780345486929
|
|
Number of Items: 1
|
| |
|
|
|
Binding: Hardcover
|
|
Author: Sara Miles
|
|
Publisher: Ballantine Books
|
|
Edition: 1
|
|
Dewey Decimal Number: 277.3083092
|
|
Publication Date: 2007-02-20
|
|
Reading Level: 304
|
|
|
| |
Description: “Mine is a personal story of an unexpected and terribly inconvenient Christian conversion, told by a very unlikely convert.”
–Sara Miles
Raised as an atheist, Sara Miles lived an enthusiastically secular life as a restaurant cook and a writer. Then early one winter morning, for no earthly reason, she wandered into a church. “I was certainly not interested in becoming a Christian,” she writes, “or, as I thought of it rather less politely, a religious nut.” But she ate a piece of bread, took a sip of wine, and found herself radically transformed.
The mysterious sacrament of communion has sustained Miles ever since, in a faith she’d scorned, in work she’d never imagined. In this astonishing story, she tells how the seeds of her conversion were sown, and what her life has been like since she took that bread.
A lesbian left-wing journalist who covered revolutions around the world, Miles was not the woman her friends expected to see suddenly praising Jesus. She was certainly not the kind of person the government had in mind to run a “faith-based charity.” Religion for her was not about angels or good behavior or piety; it was about real hunger, real food, and real bodies. Before long, she turned the bread she ate at communion into tons of groceries, piled on the church’s altar to be given away. The first food pantry she established provided hundreds of poor, elderly, sick, deranged, and marginalized people with lifesaving food and a sense of belonging. Within a few years, the loaves had multiplied, and she and the people she served had started nearly a dozen more pantries.
Take This Bread is rich with real-life Dickensian characters–church ladies, child abusers, millionaires, schizophrenics, bishops, and thieves–all blown into Miles’s life by the relentless force of her newfound calling. She recounts stories about trudging through the rain in housing projects, wiping the runny nose of a psychotic man, storing a battered woman’s .375 Magnum in a cookie tin. She writes about the economy of hunger and the ugly politics of food; the meaning of prayer and the physicality of faith. Here, in this achingly beautiful, passionate book, is the living communion of Christ.
“The most amazing book.” – Anne Lamott
|
| |
|
| |
| |
| |
| |
Customer Reviews
|
| |
|
|
| |
|
Review Summary: A Different Kind of Christianity |
Date: 2007-04-09 |
|
| |
Details: *****
This is a book about a different kind of Christianity, one based on love and reminiscent of Jesus---authentic and moving---for all of those who are turned off by the religious right and what today passes for the "Good News". It is refreshing and eye-opening to see a secular leftist lesbian experience a radical conversion to Christianity based around feeding others' physical, spiritual and emotional hunger through food pantries. Jesus said "Feed My sheep", and the author does this, and chronicles her journey. She is the kind of Christian I want to be, not hate-based or fear-based or dogma-based, but faithful to the actual Gospel, which is violently at odds with the way faith is sometimes practiced today.
She is Episcopalian, and her sexual identiy as a lesbian (which she retains after her conversion) is peripheral to her story about feeding hungry people. She ministers to "the poor, the weak, the sick and the lonely", and the book chronicles how all this comes about.
This is a great read, one that will make Christians open their eyes, and people of other faiths respect someone who has lived her life in love.
***** |
| |
|
Review Summary: hunger and holiness |
Date: 2007-05-14 |
|
|
| |
Details: Sara Miles describes herself as a blue-state, secular intellectual, a lesbian, and a left-wing journalist who developed habits of deep scepticism from covering revolutionary movements in Central America. Her grandparents on both sides were missionaries, but in reaction to that upbringing her parents were actively hostile to religion. So, it's a bit of an understatement that she also describes herself as a "very unlikely convert." But at the age of 46 Miles walked into Saint Gregory's Episcopal Church in San Francisco, partook of the Eucharist, and experienced a radical conversion. She had never heard a Gospel reading, never said the Lord's Prayer, and knew only one person who went to church. Today she is on staff at Saint Gregory's.
That was some eight years ago and only the beginning of further conversions. Building upon her life experiences as a chef, her conversion through the Eucharist, passion for the poor, and the founding vision of St. Gregory's, in 2000 Miles started a food pantry at her church that gave away free groceries (not meals) with no questions asked and no forms to fill out. Each week food for about 400 families was placed around the eucharistic altar. Such was the open communion and unconditional acceptance that she experienced at Saint Gregory's and intended to extend to anyone who was hungry. Through connections with the San Francisco Food Bank, and the generosity of unexpected donors, the miracle of the loaves multiplied and Miles went on to jump start nine more food pantries around the city.
Mundane food for the body became not only a sign of God's kingdom but, as theologians would say, the actual thing signified. Those who received wanted to give. Care for broken spirits accompanied bread for hungry bodies. If you have spent any time in church you will especially appreciate Miles' candid descriptions of the disruptions and divisions that the food pantries caused at Saint Gregory's. At one point more homeless, schizophrenic, and drug-crazed hungry people came to the food pantry than artsy, proper worshippers to the church services. While Miles saw this as a blessing, others saw it as a curse of sorts.
With her story of radical Christian conversion and the incarnation of daily discipleship Miles will join other feminist authors who have earned a broad readership because of the authenticity with which they have written about loving Christ, the church, and the world--Joan Chittister, Nora Gallagher, Anne Lamott, Kathleen Norris, Marilynne Robinson, and Barbara Brown Taylor come to mind. When I finished her book my mind kept returning to Paul's words in 1 Corinthians 4:21, "The kingdom of God is not a matter of talk but of power," and in Galatians 5:6, "The only thing that matters is faith expressing itself in love." |
| |
|
Review Summary: Take this Bread...and this book! |
Date: 2007-07-21 |
|
|
| |
Details: This book came recommended by Anne Lamott from the Sun Valley Writer's Conference newsletter. I am so glad I took her up on her suggestion. Sara Miles' conversion story is one of the best books of biblical exegeses I have had the pleasure to read.
Her childhood was liberal and void of relgion. But the hunger to be spiritually fed was always present. In her thirties she stumbles across an episcopal church in San Francisco and for the first time takes the bread and wine of the Eucharist. Her feeling of being fed by Christ - being welcome to sit at His table - is profound and life changing. She passionately shows us how we are all welcome to Christ's table to be nourished and fed despite our brokenness, weakness, intolerance, and just plain humanness. And we are called to nourish and feed others, those that are easy to love and those that are not. She makes her experience of being fed and feeding others visceral and real - all are welcome, no questions asked. I found this book insightful, funny, and inspiring. |
| |
|
Review Summary: Very good... |
Date: 2007-08-05 |
|
|
| |
Details: I really enjoyed Sara Miles's "Take This Bread." Even without the religious angle, Miles's life is an interesting one: raised in Greenwich Village by athiest parents, she worked in food service for several years before getting involved in left-wing politics. While covering war-torn Latin America, Miles saw suffering first hand. After settling in San Francisco ("The northernmost city in Latin America") with her young daughter, she finds love and feels herself drawn to a church in Potrero Hill. Her religious conversion may not be entirely surprising: both sets of her grandparents were missionaries. Her spiritual journey is brutally honest: like Anne Lamott, Miles doesn't feign piety or see the world through rose colored glasses. After Miles starts a food bank at her church, there are moments of grace as well as challenges to her faith. Miles is candid about her own self-righteousness and lack of affection for those who don't share her worldview. What emerges is an honest, engrossing story about just how difficult it is to be a Christian. It is also a revealing look at faith-based charities and social problems in America.
I enjoyed "Take This Bread" quite a bit. I'm sure many others will too. |
| |
|
Review Summary: A spiritual memoir for the 21st century |
Date: 2007-05-16 |
|
|
| |
|
Details: I am a life long Christian so I was especially interested in reading how an atheist in her 40's experienced a conversion upon wandering into an Episcopal church and taking communion. What led up to that and what followed that conversion are compelling stories, beautifully written. Sara Miles practice of Christianity puts many if not most of us Christians to shame. Her story is about what it really means to BE a Christian, not what it means to believe as a Christian. The stories that flow from her successful efforts to establish food pantries in San Francisco, beginning with her Episcopal church, are deeply moving. If you are even the faintest kind of Christian you will find this book can touch your heart, your soul, and your mind in the most refreshing way. Sara Miles is not about converting or convincing, she is about living a full human life, one she found most completely fulfilling when she took the "bread of life" at the communion table. Unbelievers should read this book to see why it is that becoming a "follower of Jesus" can be a way of tapping into the "something more" that lies outside the boundaries of reason and empirical science. Miles has been there and gone beyond. |
| |
|
| |
Similar Products
|
|
|
| |
This Product is similar to and may be found in the Following Categories:
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
