In February, I was in Boston to film a segment on Dr. Denise Faustman and speak at a networking event, but I had a few hours before my train departed, so I took the T over to Harvard. As previously mentioned, Boston is the only metro area on the East Coast that has Peet’s Coffee, so I regularly head over to Cambridge when I’m in town. After grabbing a Mocha Freddo, I decided to pop into the Harvard Coop bookstore and have a looksee.

I ended up on the third floor, which is their “coursebook” section, but I wanted to see what the brilliant minds of Harvard were being forced to read. I meandered through the Religion section, and this book caught my eye.

I thought the name Take This Bread was quite clever, and upon closer inspection, I saw that Anne Lamott, who I adore, had given the book praise. I thumbed through it and I was intrigued by the premise: Sara Miles, left-wing, athiest lesbian journalist and former chef, finds God in San Francisco and opens up a food pantry.

I didn’t want to steal the students’ copies, but I managed to find the book downstairs and began reading it on my way back to New York.

It’s taken me over a month to read the whole book, but I think it might be one of my favorite books.

Although I’m not a lesbian, I am the grand-daughter of a Jew and was raised by two agnostic parents in a left-wing household. God really didn’t have a part in my childhood, and it wasn’t until high school I started poking around at what this “higher power” could be. Like Sara, I had some amazing encounters with Christians and I had some really horrible encounters with Christians. Christians have a way of making themselves almost too unlike other people, which makes it really difficult to feel like you could ever be part of this club without having to do a complete 180 before joining. Even after being a baptized follower of Jesus for eight years, I still sometimes wonder if I am what Jesus expected or wants, and I imagine that many people, both believers and nonbelievers, feel the same way. I felt this passage really summed up the hesitancy of becoming a Christian:

“And so I became a Christian, claiming a faith that many of my fellow believers want to exclude me from; following a God my unbelieving friends see as archaic superstition. At a time when Christianity in America is popularly represented by ecstatic teen crusaders in suburban mega churches, slick preachers claiming the “gospel” of prosperity, and shrewd political organizers who rail against evolution, gay marriage, and stem cell research… Why would any thinking person become a Christian? How can one reconcile the hateful politics of much contemporary Christianity with Jesus’ imperative to love?”

But Sara joins anyway. She doesn’t “turn straight,” and in fact there are several instances of arguments between her and her wife, Martha, and their daughter, Katie, as well as Sara’s family (also non-believers) and her athiest friends. The reason Sara joins anyway is complicated, as most conversion stories usually are, but she is able to feel at home because of the story of communion.

Spending her early years as a chef, Sara describes how food and the act of feeding people is her version of the gift of the Table, the bread and the wine that Jesus shares with his disciples. In that vein, Sara launches (to much resistance) a food pantry held at her church every Friday, and is open to anyone. Drug addicts, homeless people, immigrants, and more line up outside St. Gregory’s of Nyssa in San Francisco every week to get food and in a way, receive healing.

The stories of how the food pantry impacts the lives of these people are amazing and heartwarming, and what’s really awe-inspiring is how those stories then circle back to impact Sara’s life for the better. It’s a really powerful image, and it also struck me that many things that we do are different ways of expressing Jesus’ love and the ministry of the disciples, and can be analogous to the Table.

“Mine is a personal story of an unexpected and terribly inconvenient conversion,” Sara writes at the beginning of the book, and while it might be unexpected and inconvenient for her, I think there are many people who are grateful that it happened, because of the story she is able to tell. Sara is not your typical Christian, and I think that’s why I liked the book so much. So much of what she wanted to do contradicts what many of us hear in our own Christian circles, or it contradicts what we think is said in Christian circles.

It was really refreshing to see someone so passionate about a cause, regardless of what sacrifices it meant personally. Christian or not, I think we can all use a kick in the pants when it comes to acting upon a conviction.

{Book Giveaway}

Rather than hoarding all the books I love for myself, I have decided I want to share the books that I read during my 1,001 Days Challenge with you, my friends and readers.

If this review has intrigued you and you would like to read Sara’s story yourself, then you can enter to win it! It’s easy, too. You can enter to win 3 ways:

1. Leave a comments. About anything. (See, so easy).

2. Tweet a link to this blog post, and then leave a comment with the tweet link.

3. Write your own blog post about serving others less fortunate with a link back to this post. Let’s get people talking about serving others!

The contest is open to anyone, including international readers!

Deadline is Monday, April 4 at 11:59 EST! Winner will be announced on Wednesday, April 6.