In every brief, intense, unpredictable moment of encounter on the street, it’s as if time just stops, and God’s presence flares out between us. SM: I loved going in to a beauty shop where the hairdresser gently lifted up his customer’s big teased bangs as she sat getting highlights, so that I could mark her forehead. The transforming realization is that ashes aren’t something “imposed” by one person on another: pressing my thumb on a stranger’s forehead blesses and changes us both. RNS: Have any surprise transformations taken place? It’s a compelling read and I recommend it.Cover image courtesy of Hachette Book Group I discovered a religion rooted in the most ordinary yet subversive practice: a dinner table where everyone is welcome, where the poor, the despised and the outcasts are honored. I found it at the eternal and material core of Christianity: body, blood, bread, wine poured out freely, shared by all. I was, as the prophet said, hungering and thirsting for righteousness. It wasn’t about arguing a doctrine - the Virgin birth, predestination, the sinfulness of homosexuality and divorce - or pledging blind allegiance to a denomination. What I found wasn’t about angels, or going to church, or trying to be ‘good’ in a pious, idealized way. In Miles’ words, her story is political as well as personal:Īt a moment when right-wing American Christianity is ascendant, when religion worldwide is rife with fundamentalism and exclusionary ideological crusades, I stumbled into a radically inclusive faith centered on sacraments and action. For the most part, Miles avoids the idealized and overly romantic haze that can surround stories like this and the result is a much more grounded and empowering book for those who read. It’s the story of food pantries blossomed all over San Francisco, ministries of hospitality that have extended the table of the church far beyond the bounds of the sanctuary. It’s about the out-working of that conversion in the feeding of the poorest and most marginalized in her home city. The beauty of Miles’ book is that this is more, far more, than a story of personal conversion. And nothing in Miles’ life, nor in the life of her congregation, would be the same again.

In this act of ‘eating Jesus’, she discovered the beginning of a radical turn-around in everything that mattered to her. Miles, a left-leaning journalist, political activist and atheist, was not the most likely candidate for conversion to Christian faith, yet stumbling into a celebration of communion in an Episcopal church in San Francisco, Miles found an experience of profound change.

I can’t claim it a life changer, but as a memoir of conversion centered at the table of God, it’s a book that’s affirmed for me so much about faith, eucharist and church, and in the most compelling way. No doubt, one of the best reads for me in the past two years was Sara Miles’ Take this Bread: A Radical Conversion.

Take This Bread by Sara Miles