Becoming Bread

Becoming Bread – Embracing the Spiritual in the Everyday

By Gunilla Norris

HiddenSpring, an imprint of Paulist Press, 2003, 1993

This small volume can be read very quickly – but don’t! Read,  no, savor this book, slowly. Take in the rich wisdom and spiritual truths that are revealed. Through the deceptively simple act of making a loaf of bread the author shows how we can learn to love, to share, to become, to transform. There are beautiful meditations on Willingness, Gifts, Living and Discipline; and poems that will touch the reader’s heart and soul.

This is a book we would love to add to our shelves; it is one that deserves to be read savored at least once a year as a refresher meditation in humility and humanity.

 “Being human and ordinary, we will often fail to love the whole, the dark and difficult parts. We will always try to avoid something. We will tremble. We will be blind. We will be uncertain. We will continue to hurt one another and miss the essential. We will always need mercy and compassion. We will be ineffective, stubborn, and very human. It is ultimately our vulnerability and our powerlessness that God loves the most, I believe. For there we can and do receive, must receive, and know that everything is a gift. Even our suffering.

“Full of that knowledge, that sustenance, we cannot help but share our love and our lives with each other. Then we are not only becoming bread …we are bread.”

 Rating: 5 paws

Reviewer: Jack