I learned a lot about bread in Meghan Murphy-Gill’s book The Sacred Life of Bread: Uncovering the Mystery of an Ordinary Loaf, and now have some good-looking recipes for many different kinds of bread. Each chapter in the book focuses on different features of bread, from a loaf’s origins in various grains in “Soil,” to the ingredients and the magic of the rising dough in “Inactive Time” to the myriad meanings and functions of different kinds of breads like hot dog buns (“In Place”), “Sourdough,” “Irish Soda Bread” and bread for Communion (“A Common Loaf”). Each chapter ends with at least one recipe, which encourages readers to experience for themselves the ideas and practices Murphy-Gill discusses. The thoughtful ways that Murphy-Gill makes connections between bread, the world around us, and the communities we live in, make this book worth reading for those who may already enjoy baking or want to reflect more on their own spiritual experience of the sacredness of bread.
For those who may not bake or value traditional religious practices and institutions, this book offers a way to think about how an ordinary loaf of bread can serve as the medium for spiritual transformation. As Murphy-Gill writes in her introduction, “It is in bread, from the moment a single grain is pressed into the soil to the breaking of a loaf at a table where many are gathered to share food and friendship, that I discover again and again more meaning, more feeling, more connection” (9). The “mysteries of longing and belonging, practice and rest, and transformation” (10) found in the process of making and sharing bread are where Murphy-Gill focuses her attention, as she weaves the common human experience of bread into something more.
Murphy-Gill is an Episcopal priest and her familiarity with bread is intimately tied with her religious upbringing, education, and pastoral experience. What she does really well in this book, though, is use her religious and spiritual insights in ways that can be meaningful for both those who share her faith and those who do not. In her chapter “Soil,” for instance, she begins by talking about the prayer of communion, which invokes “the fruit of the earth and work of human hands” (11), and then moves to the origin of bread: the soil in which the seeds of grain are planted. On a visit to Plainsong Farm in Michigan, where owner Nurya Love Parish grows grain for communion bread, Murphy-Gill reflects on how reconnecting with the soil and recognizing that the land on which we grow our food once belonged to Native American Indians helps us confront “a history of dominance and subjugation of people and property” that can, in Parish’s view, encourage us to “respond with more empathy to the needs of those who are hungry” (17).
Murphy-Gill goes on to consider that the human connection to the soil taps into an instinctual knowledge that “we are called to the dirt, to the soil. We come from it. The soil is where we bury the dead. The soil is also where we plant the seeds of life” (26). When we perceive that soil is “a place of beginning and . . . a place of our ending, and when we tend to it closely and with reverence, we can know more intimately what it is to live in the presence of something holy” (26). Making connections to the origins of the grain that create bread, and the meaningfulness of that origin to human life, invites the reader to contemplate the book’s central purpose: to explore a Christian’s experience within a broader human context of the creation and making of bread.
In the chapter, “Sourdough,” Murphy-Gill explores how a sourdough starter can be a metaphor for spiritual practices “which can come and go, depending on your life’s circumstances” (101). Like a spiritual practice, sourdough starter can be dormant for years and can be revived easily. One also needs to maintain a starter by discarding a lot of it, because “with each feeding, the starter exponentially increases in size and volume” (102). The author turns this feature of sourdough into a meditation on spiritual growth through letting go and learning to “hold lightly to what we have today” instead of worrying about what might happen and what could be (103). Murphy-Gill continues making human and Christian connections throughout this short book. Bread recipes are, she notes, like set prayers: “they etch patterns from which one can later explore and to which one can return again and again” (53). The recipe—like the prayer—may not yield exactly what one wants but doing the act—paying attention—is what is important. The gift of a family recipe for Irish Soda bread creates an opportunity for Murphy-Gill to reflect on what it means to be authentic in her relationship to her religious commitments and her family history.
Murphy-Gill’s exploration of how something as ordinary as bread can lead to a deeper, more nuanced understanding of spirituality and its many manifestations in human life offers readers an example of how to see the spiritual in everyday life. Because of this, The Sacred Life of Bread could be quite useful in undergraduate courses on religion and food, especially if one wants to consider a Christian perspective. Beyond that, if you are interested in reflecting on the spiritual meaning of a simple loaf of bread, Murphy-Gill’s book is worth the read.
Susan E. Hill is department head and professor of religion at the University of Northern Iowa.
Susan E. Hill
Date Of Review:
August 12, 2024
