The story of an unexpected and terribly inconvenient Christian conversion, told by a very unlikely convert, Take This Bread is not only a spiritual memoir but a call to action.
Raised as an atheist, Sara Miles lived an enthusiastically secular life as a restaurant cook and writer. Then one morning, for no earthly reason, she wandered into a church. She ate a piece of bread, took a sip of wine, and found herself radically transformed, embracing a faith she'd scorned and which would lead to feeding others in a way that she'd never imagined. Sara started a food pantry giving away literally tons of food from around the same altar where she'd first received the body of Christ, and providing hundreds of hungry families with free groceries each week.
Take This Bread is rich with real-life Dickensian characters-church ladies, millionaires, schizophrenics, bishops, and gangsters - all blown into Miles' life by the relentless force of her new-found calling. Here, in this beautiful, passionate book, is Christ's living communion.
I love Miles' perspectives on direct action and how feeding the hungry is an extension of communion, of church. I appreciate how her rebellious nature helped her get things done effectively. But the way she describes people was cringey in some places, and downright dehumanizing in others (complete with slurs). It was especially intense toward disabled and trans people. Unfortunately, this cast a dark shadow over the book as a whole. 😔
Reading updates
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Started reading
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26 May, 2018:
Finished reading
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26 May, 2018:
Reviewed