Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion
by Sara Miles
List Price:
Our Price: $8.23
You Save: $6.77 (45%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $7.48 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Sara MilesEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-02-05
ISBN: 0345495799
Number of pages: 320
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Product features:
- ISBN13: 9780345495792
- Condition: New
- Notes: BRAND NEW FROM PUBLISHER! 100% Satisfaction Guarantee. Tracking provided on most orders. Buy with Confidence! Millions of books sold!
Book Reviews of Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion
Book Review: Food, eucharist, and conversion
Summary: 5 Stars
This is a very well-written autobiographical piece by a journalist whose parents were socially active, atheist offspring of evangelical Protestant overseas missionaries. Sara shared her parents' leftist social activism, even to the point of a non-traditional college education based on social justice projects in different parts of the world. Her presumption growing up was that she also shared their atheism. After years as a journalist and activist, Sara somehow, finds herself going to church one Sunday morning and receives communion. That experience became a pivotal event, as her years of procuring, preparing, serving, and being served food in a wide variety of circumstances all came together as an insightful understanding and appreciation of the Christian eucharist -- the image of God nourishing others with real food and drink that is simultaneously his Real Presence as the Body and Blood of Christ.
I am a theologian, and this informed but non-technical reflection on eucharist rings so true, I may assign parts of it to my freshmen to read in conjunction with the way we cover eucharist in class. The author became deeply involved in an Episcopal church in San Francisco that offers an "open" communion table -- not just to other Christians, but to all. This is definitely a minority practice among Christians, as the dominant tradition is baptism and profession of faith first, then eucharist. In the Roman church of late antiquity, as well as adults today, eucharist is the final sacrament of initiation and the ultimate sign of ecclesial unity -- hence "tighter" than the unity of baptism. Open communion and inter-communion are current topics of interest among a broad cross-section of theologians in many denominations: who may come to communion, and how, when, and where they are invited. Moreover, some writings on Christian initiation points out that in the Gospels, table fellowship with Jesus was often the first invitation to discipleship, and (since these narratives are often written in a self-consciously eucharistic pattern) that this invitatory perspective can and should be applied to Christian eucharistic practices. I am personally not quite persuaded in open communion as a standard ecclesial practice; it could very well be presumptuous to believe that so many others WANT to share communion with us! However, neither am I scandalized by people who simply go to communion, because that seems to be what everyone else is doing.
Sara Miles's story is a very moving one of how this kind of "irregular" ecclesial practice ended up being spiritually nourishing for Miles, as well as others. Her summary of her faith is elegant and simple: It's about food, and about being with people who aren't like you. If all Christians could understand eucharist in those terms, that would be a transformed church, and a transformed world, indeed.
Summary of Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion
Early one morning, for no earthly reason, Sara Miles, raised an atheist, wandered into a church, received communion, and found herself transformed?embracing a faith she?d once scorned. A lesbian left-wing journalist who?d covered revolutions around the world, Miles didn?t discover a religion that was about angels or good behavior or piety; her faith centered on real hunger, real food, and real bodies. Before long, she turned the bread she ate at communion into tons of groceries, piled on the church?s altar to be given away. Within a few years, she and the people she served had started nearly a dozen food pantries in the poorest parts of their city.Take This Bread is rich with real-life Dickensian characters?church ladies, millionaires, schizophrenics, bishops, and thieves?all blown into Miles?s life by the relentless force of her newfound calling. Here, in this achingly beautiful, passionate book, is the living communion of Christ.
?The most amazing book.?
?Anne Lamott
?Engaging, funny, and highly entertaining . . . Miles comments, often with great insight, on the ugliness that many people associate with a particular brand of Christianity. Why would any thinking person become a Christian? is one of the questions she addresses, and her answer is also compelling reading.?
?Booklist
?Powerful . . . This book is a gem [and] will remain with you forever.?
?The Decatur Daily
?What Miles learns about faith, about herself and about the gift of giving and receiving graciously are wonderful gifts for the reader.?
?National Public Radio
?[A] joyful memoir . . . advocates big-tent Christianity in the truest sense . . . a story of finding sustenance and passing it on.?
?National Catholic Reporter
?Rigorously honest, Take This Bread demonstrates how hard?and how necessary?it is to welcome everyone to the table, without exception.?
?San Francisco Chronicle
?Moving, delightful and significant.?
?The Christian Century
Don?t miss the reading group guide in the back of the book.
Christianity Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Christianity Books
The Problem of Pain CDby C. S. Lewis
HarperAudio; Published: 2004-06-01; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $16.83
Price in other shops:
Catholicism: New Study Edition--Completely Revised and Updatedby Richard P. McBrien
HarperOne; Published: 1994-05-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $20.98
Price in other shops:
Theirs Is the Kingdom: Celebrating the Gospel in Urban Americaby Robert D. Lupton
HarperOne; Published: 2011-10-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.91
Price in other shops:
The Hidden Book in the Bibleby Richard Elliott Friedman
HarperOne; Published: 1999-08-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.00
Price in other shops:
The Hidden Book in the Bibleby Richard Elliott Friedman
HarperOne; Published: 1998-09-22; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.31
Price in other shops:
Jesus: A Revolutionary Biographyby John Dominic Crossan
Harpercollins; Published: 1994-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $8.69
Price in other shops:
Exploring Heaven: What Great Christian Thinkers Tell Us About Our Afterlife with Godby Arthur O. Roberts
HarperSanFrancisco; Published: 2003-08-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.99
Price in other shops:
THE PROBLEM OF PAINby C. S. Lewis
Fontana; Published: 1979; Paperback; Book
New Testament Greek for Beginnersby J. Gresham Machen
Prentice Hall; Published: 1923-03-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $74.00
Price in other shops:
Mere Christianityby C. S. Lewis
Prentice Hall & IBD; Published: 1978-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.93
Similar Books and other products
Christianity After Religion: The End of Church and the Birth of a New Spiritual Awakeningby Diana Butler Bass
HarperOne; Published: 2012-02-14; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $13.92
Price in other shops:
Tattoos on the Heart: The Power of Boundless Compassionby Gregory Boyle
Free Press; Published: 2011-02-22; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.01
Price in other shops:
Miriam's Kitchen: A Memoirby Elizabeth Ehrlich
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1998-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.98
Price in other shops:
Easter Everywhere: A Memoirby Darcey Steinke
Bloomsbury USA; Published: 2008-03-18; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.74
Price in other shops:
Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faithby Barbara Brown Taylor
HarperOne; Published: 2007-04-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.05
Price in other shops:
Food and Faith: A Theology of Eatingby Norman Wirzba
Cambridge University Press; Published: 2011-05-23; Paperback; Book
Best price: $16.52
Price in other shops:
My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist's Personal Journeyby Jill Bolte Taylor Ph.D.
Plume; Published: 2009-05-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.40
Price in other shops:
In Due Season: A Catholic Lifeby Paul Wilkes
Jossey-Bass; Published: 2009-03-16; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $9.79
Price in other shops:
Etty Hillesum: An Interrupted Life the Diaries, 1941-1943 and Letters from Westerborkby Etty Hillesum
Picador; Published: 1996-11-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.80
Price in other shops:
Jesus Freak: Feeding Healing Raising the Deadby Sara Miles
Jossey-Bass; Published: 2010-01-26; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $11.03
Price in other shops: