Bread For One Another

Ministry as Presence

Apr 24, 2015

Saying For Today: In some way unexplainable but knowable, we see that in offering ourselves as Bread to nourish, we ourselves are nourished.

Love alone can unite living beings, so as to complete and fulfill them, for it alone joins them by what is deepest in themselves.

Persons are much interested in what I believe. Better they be interested in, "Does he love?" I am, first and foremost, a lover, not a believer. So, who am I? Love. What am I here to do? Love. What lasts always, that death cannot touch? Only Love, only Love. If I have a creed - it is Love. If I have a confession - it is Love. If there is one thing worth living and dying for - it is Love. Ask not, I request, does he believe rightly? but does he deeply care for others - meaning, does he love them with all the powers within himself, even when he does not know how to love them?

Is it not interesting that Jesus says, in John's Gospel, "I am the bread of life," when one tradition has him being born in Bethlehem, meaning "House of Bread"? The Bread being born in the Bread House?

What is this Bread? this Life? Bread, or lechem, in the Hebrew language referred not only to bread, but to food generally. Life, in John's Gospel, refers to spiritual Life, not merely biological life, or existence. Jesus says, essentially, "Eat me, for this Bread brings you a Life that is not of the body, is not merely existence." Even at one place in the John Gospel, Jesus says persons who eat him will live. Same idea. Existing is not Life, but an expression of Life.

I would agree with those who say Jesus' words invite us to be - or realize we are - the Bread of Life. That is, we are truly the Bread of Life, we are Son of God, Daughter of God.

This would mean we are food for one another. When we are true to who we truly are - not merely a person among persons, but Presence with Presence -, we are eating of one another. Have you not been around someone and come away feeling stronger, encouraged, changed in some way by being with him or her - possibly, sometimes, when no word was spoken-: we could say nourished and nurtured in soul, as though Life was awakened within you by the other? We are, truly, sacraments, truly, Eucharist, for one another - a Bread not of one religion, but of Presence garbed in body and blood.

What do you need to do to be this Bread? Realize and allow that you are the Bread already. Did Jesus become Bread? or realize He is Bread? The Eastern faiths can help us in this by its teaching of spiritual awakening. When you awake, or are awakened, you realize you are more than your material make-up, more than a personality constume, more than anyone has told you or can tell you.

I saw this again, today, in some visits with persons. I sensed some silent, inarticulate Communication going one, some Connection happening, that had nothing to do with words. Then, in realizing this, we realize Presence gives Itself to be eaten, to nourish the other, and, still, Presence is fully Presence - having lost nothing of Itself. In some way unexplainable but knowable, we see that in offering ourselves as Bread to nourish, we ourselves are nourished. This is the way of Spirit, of Presence, of Love loving: Grace gives Itself to be eaten, and Grace eats, but this is One Presence, One Sharing of Self-with-Self.

*Arem Nahariim-Samadhi

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The Sacred in Me bows to the Sacred in You