“Bread for myself is a material question: bread for my neighbor is a spiritual question.” (Nicolai Berdyaev; quoted in Plough Quarterly, Summer 2023)

Bread is meant to be eaten, used, useful to us. Unused, it is useless. We eat it, sometimes sharing it, or lose it.

I believe we are not only created to enjoy our bread and meals. I believe we also are meant to share our bread and enjoy it with others. If we have more than we need, we are called to find others to share it with, not hoard it, where it eventually becomes useless.

The Covid pandemic increased our post modern tendency to draw into ourselves, away from interaction with others. However, it merely continued a trend begun as we increasingly separated into smaller and smaller groups, leading to more meals eaten alone.

Some of us are more introverted than others, a quiet space alone being essential to spiritual and mental health. Indeed, all of us need time alone to recharge spiritual batteries at times.

However, being with and caring for others is essential for our human society. Sharing bread together may be the basic example of sharing. Jesus ministered at least a couple of times by making bread available for multitudes. No one went away hungry. What was left over was gathered for later use.

The crowd no doubt included families as well as friends, but, in that large group, many were surely strangers as well.

Bread is communal, the universal example of our need to share with both family, friend, and stranger.

And ultimately? Even with enemies: “No, if your enemies are hungry feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink.” (Romans 12:20)