Take This Bread by Sara Miles - Essay Example

? Order 514810 Topic: Take This Bread by Sara Miles So far as a single human being is hungry in my country, my entire religion is to feed him—said an oriental philosopher. That which is not practical cannot be religious either; that is to say, every religious principle must stand the test of practicability. An individual will find it difficult to continue with the religious/spiritual pursuits on hungry stomach—when curry for the night is worry for the morning and when tomorrow’s bread is not assured from today’s labor! External embellishments are of no consequence for a truly religious individual; what you feel internally for the fellow human beings, especially the needy ones, is more important. The essence of all religious texts is-- help and do service to others. That is the greatest meritorious act. To cause intentional pain to others is the greatest act of sin. Sara Miles said thus, without actually saying! A true Christian is the one who has not only cross on the neck, but also Christ in the heart. Sara Miles prayed and performed. Prayer took the second place in the order of her religious priorities and service occupied the first place. “Hunger” is the word that set her thinking and energized her. When she converted to Christianity at the age of 46, she was not like a young girl/youth with impressionable mind, receptive to transplantation of new ideas. She was a tough individual, experienced in many facets of life, with strong leftist leanings, secular-intellectual, and by strict standards of Christianity and Church, not a fit candidate for conversion. But such ‘accidents’ do happen in life, and when it happened it opened for her new vistas of forward thrust. ‘To feed people’ became, not her view of life, but the way of life. She was obsessed with the idea of feeding people. Did she create a special brand of her own type Christianity? The answer to this question is both yes and no. For no one born on this Planet Earth can interpret what the true Christian principles are. What is the exact import of the revelations of that realized soul, the son God; no one will ever be able to comprehend! Each one sees a new horizon and interprets the Christian principles from the level of one’s spiritual progression. No one knows what is the perfect truth related to Christianity. When perfect Christian discipline is not known, they carry on with the available discipline, thinking that it alone is the final truth about Christianity! Divinity and humanity are alternative beats of the same heart. If you have any doubt, study the book, not mere read the book, “Take this Bread” by Sara Miles. They (Divinity and humanity) must run together like the train that speeds on two parallel tracks. It is like the scale of justice. Both arms of the scale are important to strike the equilibrium. To give another comparison they are like the two banks of a river! Sara turned one piece of bread that she ate at communion into many tons of groceries and discovered the new mission for her life. She used the altar of the Church where she met her God, Jesus Christ for the purpose. Poorest parts of the country turned out to be her pilgrimage centers. Her struggle was not ordinary. She came into contact and had to interact with a heterogeneous section of the society, good, bad and worst. She writes, (2000, xii) “I had to struggle with my atheist family, my doubting friends, and the prejudices and traditions of my newfound church. I learned about the great American scandal of the politics of food, the economy of hunger, and the rules of money. I met thieves, child abusers, millionaires, day laborers, politicians, schizophrenics, gangsters, and bishops—all blown into my life through the restless power of a call to feed people, widening that I thought as my “community” in ways that were exhilarating, confusing, and often scary.” It is better not to give than give with arrogance. In her search for ways and means to combat hunger she provides the above description of the types of people she encountered---all of them, perhaps practicing Christians. The question that bothered her and set her thinking was--why individuals practicing the same faith, must have such vicious negative tendencies? The religious history of humankind is unable to provide a satisfactory answer, as to how to mitigate the negative tendencies that engulf the humanity at any given time of human history. Her style of interpreting Christian principles caught the imagination of the people and those bigwigs who wished to donate. Again, service preceded prayers at the altar, in her order of religious priorities. She did not give up any of her leftist beliefs, after her conversion to Christianity. But those beliefs shed violence as an option to redress the grievances. She writes, “The main thing I said was that the food pantry, as I envisioned it, was another way of doing Church—through one that didn’t demand belief or expect people to pray….” (p.113) Food was her mission, not a source to earn commission! She was pained how the world at large and those in positions of authority exploited people and did profiteering even in the assignments of charities. She began to perceive food as the universal bond that had the latent capacity to bring the people together. Her extensive travels through the war-torn countries, and her firsthand experience of those who extensively suffered due to wars, and how people were torn apart, shaped her thinking. She invented the benevolent weapon of sharing food, with the firm conviction that it had the potency to weld a universal bond and bring the people together. She provides some pre-conversion backgrounder information about her mind-set, “Long before I went to Church or ran a food pantry, wars would reveal my weaknesses and mistakes—sins, to use a word that never occurred to me then….and make me….” (p.50) Sara’s concept of charity was entirely different from charity in the ordinary sense. The hand that gave charity remained parallel to the hand was instrumental in arranging the charity. This act of charity protected the essential dignity of the human being and did not destroy the dynamism in one’s personality. Through her pantries she visualized a greater social cause of uniting the people and creating a sense of togetherness in the society. Sara writes, “I just wish they could look at the pantry and see it, you know? Like, it’s not about doing charity for poor people. We’re bringing people together to share food and praise God.”(p.223)What was the result of her experiments? Poor people arrived at the pantry selected their own groceries and took them home to cook their own meals. This good work at St. Gregory was a great success and over 250 people gathered outside every week for the pantry. Sara’s views were not to the liking of the strict disciplinarians who followed the Church rules and regulations. To such people container is more important than the contents. Rituals are given precedence over the essence. She was more interested in practically solving the mysteries than engage in brooding over them to write lengthy commentaries. Church was God at work in the world, according to her. Practical work, the field work, work amongst the people according to the principles of Gospel was her choice than read the gospel in the majestic, candlelit halls of the Churches. She took the mandate of Jesus to the grassroots level and this was resented by the traditional, theory-loving Christian clergy. Her growing popularity amongst the masses was not to their liking. Sara’s style of practicing Christianity blasted many a myths entertained by the so-called Christians. They were so-called because she taught them what it was really to practice Christianity than to simply to follow the principles. Describe a cake several times, through several styles—unless you taste the cake, you are not going to know its real worth. What you do as a Christian is no doubt important; but how you do, what you do is more important. Therefore, her actions and the methods of working amongst the needy touch every heart, mind and soul and make one nod in approval. She seemed to work with intense devotion with the hearty feeling—Christ watches my actions and understands my feelings constantly, from the heaven! I must be true to him for whatever I do! Devotion and service to the common people is devotion to Christ. Her brutal honesty in dealings makes one wonder, how difficult it is to be a true Christian. She is a rebel against all established procedures of the Church, wherever they obstruct the human progress in the real sense. She sees her Jesus in the hearts of the common man, the hungry and the needy. Selfishness, hypocrisy and aggrandizement for wealth and authority can be seen in all walks of secular life, but Sara is sorry to observe such tendencies in the Church environment. . She is pained to scrutinize the hypocrites, and holier-than-thou attitudes. They pray, but not knowing for what purpose they are engaged in prayer. The miserable world outside the Church has no impact on their senses and sensibilities. Sara did not profess that whatever she did was correct. She only proclaimed that whatever correct was there in the world of Jesus belonged to her and she honestly tried to put those principles in to practice through the common platform for the common people. Many liked it, used it, some misused it. They took undue advantage of her generosity and good will. Some recipients of her help turned to be future donors. The reformed ones turned reformers and volunteered to join her. Conclusion: This one is no ordinary conversion. Firstly, Sara was converted to Christianity and then she began to convert Christians to Christianity. The piece of bread that was offered to her at the time of her communion, turned out to be a perennial source of benevolent revolution that spread, not like a wild-fire, but like the soothing, yet powerful breeze. Many willing readers of her book became her willing followers. But she was not up to preach or do anything new. She was guided by the preaching of Christ and acted upon them. She did nothing more, nothing less! If a section of the Church failed to appreciate her and tried to corner her, Sara is not to be blamed. She just pitied, not condemned them like a true Christian! Works Cited Miles, Sara, Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion, Ballantine Books, February 5, 2008. Read More