As Wheat is Turned to Bread

The Planting

You buried me in the dark safety of good soil. You placed me in an environment you yourself had chosen with care, and let me remain hidden as I germinated and sent out little roots and shoots binding me to my place in the world. 

The Growing

My head burst the soil and saw the sun for the first time, and I was filled with joy. I raced upwards, learning and growing, reaching towards the warmth and light I had instinctively known was there all my life but could now actively pursue. My roots grew deeper and my shoots grew taller, and I began to believe that anything was possible. In time I bore fruit, wheat germ ripening into beauty. 

The Picking

You saw that I was ripe and ready, and I heard your invitation to come with you, somewhere new, in order to be put to good purpose. I consented to leave behind the safe soil and the known places, glad to be useful to my master and overjoyed to be carried in the palm of your hand. Thus I travelled, held, for a long while, through fields and villages, and into a darkened workroom.

The Crushing

After a long journey I found myself in a container at long last, and readied myself to be presented at your table. But the blows came then—the crushing and the grinding, the hard pressing of pain and blunt realities against my soft skin. I was bruised and torn asunder, broken down into ever-smaller pieces, decimated, devastated. Confused, I fought hard to remain in tact, to remain fit for purpose. But loss followed loss, and in the end I submitted to what I could not resist.

The Mixing

When my consistency was fine and even, sifted through and found pure, you let saltwater tears mingle with my crushed spirit to form a dough. You mixed it all thoroughly, leaving nothing dry and untouched by sorrow, blending it perfectly until self and grief could no longer be separated. Yet more was needed – you added sweetness, mixed it through as thoroughly as you had the tears. 

The Proving

And then you left me alone, for time and sweetness and gentle warmth were needed to catch the yeast that would make this dough rise. You laid me to rest in the sunshine, exposed and receptive to the spores in the air, ready to grow and swell in response to the work of the yeast and the sweetness and the warmth and the slow hours. 

The Kneading

When your fitting time had elapsed, you took me again to your work table, and stretched and kneaded me, activating latent potential deep within the structure of my being. Over and over you lifted me and pushed me down, making me softer and more pliable and more resilient. This was different to the crushing, for nothing in me broke anymore, but was bound and made stronger and transformed into malleable dough.

The Second Proving

You left me again for a final time, to rise up in warmth and active power, to double in size and swell gently, nearly ready to be shaped exactly as you saw fit. You scooped me out of the container which had been my security and sculpted me into the loaf of your choosing, spreading me and smoothing my edges and scoring my surface with beautiful scars.

The Baking

And at long last you transferred me to the blazing, unbearable heat of your furnace, left me there without respite or reprieve while my substance changed and was glorified, turned finally into what I had always longed to be. It was pain and joy all at once, knowing that the fire was making me golden, knowing that for a short time I could be close to this inferno and not be burned. You kept a watchful eye on me, seeing that I did not darken or scald, watching as I grew and set in the final shape you always had in mind for me. 

The Sitting

Then, when all was finished, you removed me from the blaze of heat and laid me down in a cool place, to sit quietly and solidify all that had been done within. I was different at my core than the one who had gone into the oven, the one who had been planted and picked and crushed and mixed and kneaded and left to rise. Yet time was needed for the right consistency, even here at the end of all things. You let me be for a long while, even when you could have taken a first slice warm from the oven. You were patient, as I myself had never been patient, and your meticulous craft paid off. 

Perhaps the workman who takes and eats this bread

will plant the new season’s wheat seeds 

in that fallow corner of the field from whence I was plucked,

the energy I give him allowing the cycle to continue.

Perhaps the Lord of the harvest will Himself

enjoy the fruit of His labours:

a little loaf, shared among friends,

becoming His body.

Perhaps the birds of the air 

will pick up the last little crumbs

left on the hearth rug, taking them tenderly in their beaks

and soaring back out

through the open window

over the village

over the fields

beyond my place in the world.