A new year and semester on the Quad came with renewed energy for practical and theological engagement with topics like sustainability, liturgy, human nourishment, social justice, communion, and conversion—thanks, in large part, to Sara Miles.
The renowned reporter, speaker, activist, and author of several books—including Take This Bread, the all-school text for this academic year—visited YDS in January for a lecture, conversation, and a time of prayer. Members of the Community Life Committee, Student Council, and YDS Sustainability collaborated to organize the visit.
At her lecture on Tuesday evening, January 23, Dean Greg Sterling introduced Miles by pointing out her rare status among the ranks of those who’ve written a “truly remarkable” spiritual autobiography—folks like Augustine and the patron of her own parish, Gregory of Nyssa. Her spiritual memoir, Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion, has a way of communicating concepts of grace and faith in a manner that is both inviting to those with a modern skepticism about church and challenging to those already devoted to its work. She’s able to bridge this gap because her message is universal: We hunger.
Take This Bread describes Miles’s conversion from atheism to Christianity, which happened in an unexpected instant. For no good reason she can recall, she strolled into a church, received the bread and wine of communion, and knew—nearly against her will—that God was real. It’s no surprise that this initial mystical experience has led her to the work of feeding the hungry with spiritual and literal bread. It’s also no surprise this was the focus of her visit to YDS, which highlighted the human relationship to food, God, and each other.
Miles began her lecture by demonstrating the toxic worrying shared by “foodies” and the “chronically underfed”—concerns about what, when, and how to be nourished.
“Can kale save?” she asked humorously, underscoring the dramatic seriousness (what she called “über-levitical purity”) with which some take their preferences for organic, farm-raised, local, fair-trade (and so on) dining options. Miles suggests that this all-consuming concern about what we consume—whether it’s sufficiently local or sufficient to fill us until our next meal—is ultimately “bad for the soul.” By contrast, she said, eating with God offers a new way of approaching food, God, and each other.
Pockets of conversation among students and faculty emerged over wine, cheese, and grilled fruit following her stimulating lecture. There was a lot to digest, including questions like:
- If we want to eat with integrity, is it better to spend more on local, fair-trade food, or shop somewhere like Wal-Mart and then give the money saved to someone in more dire need?
- Is it possible that we find too much of our identity in our food preferences?
- How can we invite everyone to communion while, like Jesus, insisting that those at the table at least attempt to “go and sin no more?”
- Should pastors work harder to get churchgoers to the food pantry and pantry-goers to the church, or are each of these fundamentally and amply liturgical in their own way?
- How do we accomplish what Gregory of Nyssa insists upon—that our bread be flavored by a clean conscience?
- Finally, is YDS doing all it can to promote food justice?
Miles participated in these discussions. “In the conversation with students after my talk, I was struck by the range of questions about sacramental life, and what it means both inside and outside church buildings,” she said. “I’m impressed by the way that YDS encourages students and faculty to ask questions and dig more deeply into the meaning of their religious practices.”
It was Miles’s work and story that gave meaning and momentum to the YDS community’s religious practices the next day, when she joined students, faculty, and staff for chapel service at Marquand. Those attending ate loaves of bread that were baked and broken by students at YDS, and they discussed the inefficiencies and injustices of our current food system. In community, over communion, people communicated about God and human hunger.
Although Sara Miles was at YDS for only a short time, she sparked conversations that are certain to continue, formally and informally, well into 2015.
Ellen B. Koneck is a first-year M.A.R. student interested in Roman Catholic theology. She has previously written for Commonweal and Whether.