
“Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land;
I am weak, but thou art mighty;
Hold me with thy powerful hand;
Bread of heaven, bread of heaven,
Feed me till I want no more,
Feed me till I want no more”
Peter Williams, Praying for Strength
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My uncle John made bread. I don’t expect he’d have won at “bread week” in The Great British Bake Off. But he enjoyed making bread, and the little house in which he and my aunt lived was regularly filled with the aromas of freshly baked bread. It’s suggested that when we sell a house and open it for viewing, we should make sure it’s filled with the smell of freshly baked bread. I’ve never tried the ploy myself, but I can understand the idea. The smell of bread is welcoming, earthy, and creates an atmosphere where people feel at ease. In short, it helps folk feel at home.
Bread, therefore, is a basic, a staple, of life and home. Is it any wonder, therefore, that we are called in The Lord’s Prayer to be thankful for “our daily bread”? Actually, the phrase is “give us this day our daily bread”. (I don’t understand that. Are the basics not already there? Surely we don’t have to pray to be “given” the bread of life? I’ll come to that in a moment.) But for now, “bread” calls me to be grateful for all that it signifies: home and sustenance, life and love, health and relationships. Bread! All that’s good and wholesome. Bread! Giving thanks for life.
But what of those who have no bread, no home, no basics, none of the staples of life, nothing to be thankful for? What of those who are deprived of the bread taken from them by others who’re greedy? What of those in the cellars of a steel plant in Mariupol in Ukraine who have no food because of the invasion of Russian troops? What of those who would pray fervently “give us our daily bread” in a drought-stricken country?
Surely as we pray these words, we should heed their heartfelt cries. We shouldn’t just be grateful for what we have, but also turn outwards to the world and share our bread with the hungry, so that they have enough of the sustaining things of life to which they surely have an equal right.
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A prayer for today
Bread of heaven, feed me,
and call me also to feed those who have no bread. Amen
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An original reflection by © Tom Gordon