life lesson: bread = love

Cooking is not just a hobby for the women in my family; it is a tangible form of love. When I was a little girl my Grandmother Winget would make homemade sourdough bread a couple times a week. Three loaf pans sitting side by side on the stove held delicious treasure that she would share with me. I remember that her whole house would smell of the goodness baking in the oven and even after coming home from spending the afternoon on her back porch I could sometimes catch a whiff of it on my shirt. My brothers and I would fight over who got to eat the coveted heels of the bread that were coated in butter with crispy edges all the way around. My Grandmother Winget is now 92 and lives in a nursing home but If you talked to her today about baking she will perk up in her chair and say with a glean in her eye that she’d give anything to get her hands in some bread dough. I believe this is not just because the woman loves to cook: she misses the feeling of giving something that she knew only she could give.

 

I think I can relate to that.

 

I love to cook. i love the feeling of my hands in bread dough, too. I learned to make my Grandmother’s famous sourdough bread this past Christmas from a woman in my home community who bakes like my Grandmother used to. She tutored me during the 2 day process of bread making and then sent me on my way with some starter that shes kept for about 30 years. I felt like I’d graduated from something.  And I knew my Grandmother was proud. There’s something powerful about tradition, isnt there? About holding and valuing something that has been passed down to you. I feel like baking bread like my Grandmother is one way for me to pass on the affection that I felt standing on my tiptoes in her kitchen peeking over the top of the stove and eying those three loaf pans. I knew she loved me. She spent time baking her love into something edible.  (And who doesn’t like to receive that kind of love?)

I took communion at a Lutheran church this past Sunday and as I was kneeling at the altar I couldn’t help but think that this was a familiar feeling: this being loved through bread. The affection, mercy and love that it symbolized; the sacrifice that made it possible and the fruit of energy and service that would be a result. Jesus gave us something that only He could give. 

 

The authors of the Gospels don’t mention who made the meal at the last supper, who set the table and made sure the wine pitchers were full and that everyone had a chair. In my mind I see the women who were Jesus’ followers being busy about all these things knowing it was important for the Passover to be celebrated with certain traditions. Women like my Grandmother. Their service showed their love. That’s how I want to be.