The Good Life

I've been waiting all week to share with you the thing that stuck most deeply in my heart as I read Shauna Niequist's new book, Bread and Wine.  Here it is:

Figure out how you experience the world.  Then do that.

I said on Monday that I thought this book might be my fairy tale.  Somewhere in its pages, I had honestly expected to find my happily ever after.  That piece of life I was missing because it seems, or at least a couple of months ago, it seemed, that it was this kind of experience that I was looking for - a place around the table, good food in front of me, good friends all around.  It seems magical, doesn't it?

It did to me once.

But as I continued to read through the stories and turn the pages, the magic shattered under the weight of a bigger question.  As much as I had considered that maybe this is what I was missing, maybe this was magic, this something so simple as a shared meal, the more I read, the more I realized how absolutely agonizing and obligatory that kind of thing sounded.  My heart was burdened with the idea just reading it.  I hadn't expected that out of myself.

It was disappointing.  It was stop-reading-right-now, this-book-obviously-isn't-your-book disappointing.  I wanted to stop reading.  I wanted to be disappointed and let that be that.  It would have been easy to do so.  This wasn't the happy little storybook I wanted, and if I hadn't agreed to read the thing, maybe I would have put it down. 

I'm so glad it didn't.

The question Bread and Wine kept asking, through the power of its stories (which are about so much more than food), the question that shattered my magic was: how do you experience the world?

Shauna experiences the world through food and table.  She experiences the world by cooking for it and eating with it and finding enough space around her table to bring her world together and experience as a community, around the food, what the world is.

I decided don't.  Again, I hadn't expected, or even suspected, as much.  I thought if there was anyone who could get around a table, it was me.  That is still somewhat true.  I love food.  I love good food.  I love cooking food, experimenting, blending the flavors.  I feel an honor in nourishing my loved ones with fantastic, healthy dishes and polishing off with a fresh-baked dessert anything.  I have an honest appreciation for all of that.  Which is, I guess, how it was so easy to fool myself for so long thinking I ought to have more of this.

It's not how I experience the world.  It's not, primarily, the thing that speaks the most about this place to me.  And it's not, primarily, the thing I feel I can speak the most through.  That was the end of that fairy tale.

And the start of a new one, maybe.  Or at least a deeper prayer.  Because the question this book asked me - how do you experience your world - is one that I have to say even weeks later, I'm nowhere close to answering.  I have moments that seem so clear, so obviously what everything is - everything is this moment.  But I don't really have a grasp on what those moments are, other than holy, and I haven't figured out what makes them holy, other than God, and that makes them a little hard to grasp in any sort of narrative.

I think the goal is getting that kind of stuff into narrative.  It's figuring out how it is that you experience the world so that you can have more of those moments.  Shauna hungers for the table; if she didn't understand how powerfully that speaks into her life, would she hunger the same way?  No.  And she would miss so much story (and we would miss so much book).  The question I'm asking myself, in holy and mundane moments, in this and in that, is: what do I hunger for?  I ask you the same: what do you hunger for?

What is it that powerfully speaks into your experience, that defines the way you see the world and makes life deeper because you have it in you and in your life and in your experience?  That's the key to the fairy tale, if you want to call it something so whimsical.  That is the key to happily ever after, which is more holy than Disney ever made it sound.

If you want to live the rich life, the kind of life that maybe has au poivre and Pont Neuf but maybe has mud-covered boots and calloused hands or fresh paint and flowers or kids and kittens or whatever it is, you have to figure out how you experience the world.  Primarily, how this world speaks to you and how you feel most free to speak into this world.  That is the heart of your story.

I think when we can answer that question, we tap into the holy.  We hit at that thing that is wholly created in us for His glory and our joy (although, not all is pure joy; there is such thing as labor of love, and labor is hard work).  We touch that us-shaped hole around us and in doing so, touch that God-shaped hole inside of us where we're begging Him to fill us up with more of this.

So I'm asking myself lately, where is this place for me?  I hope you will ask yourself the same.  And if you figure it out, let me know.  You know I'll tell you if I ever discover such my place.  It's cool to see where everybody fits.

The same way it's been cool to share space with Shauna in her kitchen, even if only for a short story or so.  Thank you, Shauna, for sharing.  

Pre-order Bread and Wine from Amazon today.  The book releases April 9.

Per federal regulations, I am required to tell you that in exchange for my blogging and digital reviews, Zondervan publishing provided a free copy of Bread and Wine for my perusal.  I must also tell you, as a matter of personal integrity, that I am being completely honest in my words and that the offer from Zondervan does not influence my opinion nor my statement. In the sixth grade, I once gave a book report that began, "This book was terrible.  Do not waste your time reading it."  The teacher pulled me into the hall and said I would get an F if I didn't change my tune, that the idea of a book report was to get people to read the book.  I took the F because I don't believe that; I believe in being honest about a book.  If it sucks, I'm going to tell you it sucks.  This book, Bread and Wine, does not suck.

Unapologetic

One of the things that first aggravated, then enticed me, about Bread and Wine, was the way Shauna decided simply to write and not stop to explain things.

I mentioned a bit of that in my actual review on Monday when I completely dismissed the recipes in the book for Shauna having broken my cardinal sin of recipe writing.  Namely, assuming that we all have plentiful and open access to such healthy foods as almond meal or dates or goat cheese.  Namely, assuming we can all walk out our front door and into the Whole Foods and find these things.  It drives me nuts when cooks talk like that.  Maybe, I guess, because I'm jealous that I don't live in such a place.  (And I'm still mad at my Wal-Mart for discontinuing the sale of my 100% whole wheat bagels.  WHY????)

But Shauna does this kind of thing throughout the book.  She references foods like we are all supposed to know what those dishes are.  Some of them, I don't.  Some of them, I might not even have pronounced correctly while reading in my head.  Some of them, I was tempted to look up online so I would at least have a clue what we're talking about here.  But I never did.

She talks about visiting Paris and starts listing off all these place names or landmarks or...I don't even know what they are.  French somethings.  In French.  It's a language I studied for a semester or so in the seventh grade and remember just enough to appreciate pop culture references, but could not at all follow Shauna's guided tour through Paris.  I thought about having one search window open to look up all these things really quickly.  But I never did.

I never did because they didn't matter, and while my first thought was frustration, I came to appreciate Shauna's unapologetic style of writing.  I guess that's what I would call it.

I'm a writer.  One of the first things anyone ever tells you about writing is that if nobody understands it, then it isn't good writing.  That you have to be perfectly clear about what you are saying so that other people can follow along.  It means stopping if you need to in order to offer a definition.  Taking a few sentences to clarify things.  Editing things out if you don't want to interrupt them to reference something people might actually know.  Basically, dumbing yourself and your stuff down so that everybody and their dog can understand it.  They tell you that's what good writing is.

And in a sense, they tell you that's what a good life is.  Understandable.  Above all else, comprehendable.

And I think all that's a lie.

I was wrapped up in Shauna's stories.  Part of me, yes, wanted to stop and look a few things up.  Part of wanted to have a better grasp on some of the material.  But a bigger part of me understood that knowing exactly what Pont Neuf is (and I still don't know.  I don't even know if it's a person, a place, a thing, a food?  No clue) and properly pronouncing au poivre (in which the "r" is apparently silent.  Once I read the recipe, I realized my brother had tried to make this once in my kitchen, cussing after he spilled all his freshly ground peppercorns on the floor.  More specifically, on the dog blanket.  But my vacuum smelled awesome until I changed the bag) - knowing what these things actually are, getting them right, would have been a distraction from the story.  And man, I was already in the story.

See, it didn't matter to me, when I really thought about it, what those kinds of things were.  I was experiencing them through Shauna, understanding that they were this or that, pleasing or unpleasant, aromatic or a little bitter, wonderful or nostalgic or tantalizing or taunting.  She was able to paint a picture for me through her words that allowed me to experience things I can't pronounce, can't define, and probably couldn't pick out of a lineup.  And I found that none of the actual details mattered.  The story did.

I'm thinking about that these days as I write, especially, but also as I live.  I want to communicate that way.  I want to be the person who shares unapologetically how I experience my world, whether it makes full sense to you or not.  I don't want to stop and explain everything; I don't want to be trapped in a life that might be explainable.  I want to be authentic in how this is, in how life is, so that maybe it is an invitation for you.

Because the truth is that I've never thought myself one to try to teach you how to live your life.  I would fail.  I cannot know your world; I cannot live it.  I can live mine, though.  I can life my life and hope, and pray, that my life somehow sparks something in yours.  I can live my life not explaining but inexplicably, beyond understanding and beyond definitions and beyond comprehension because that's kind of the life He's called me to anyway.  I don't think I should have to apologize for that.  I don't think I should have to go back and make it a reference we can all understand.

I don't think I should have to dumb down my living so that anyone else can understand my life.

That's not what makes writing good.  And it's not what makes living good.

What makes it good is the story.  It's being able to draw people in and wrap them in story and get them so lost in the experience that the details don't matter.  It's being able to live in a way that envelops the world around you into your narrative without making them feel like they have to live it or even "get" it.  It's good when your story pens a word, maybe, here and there in the stories of those around you and helps them start writing their own.  It's about being authentic in your story and not apologizing for the way you see the world and not defining and explaining and dumbing it down.

We all ought to spend less time defining and more time living.  Less time explaining and more time just being.  We weren't meant to be instruction manuals; we are living invitations.

I'm better off for seeing the world through Shauna's eyes, instead of having her agonize over getting me to see it as she saw it.  If she tries too hard to make me feel the way she feels, to see the way she sees, to appreciate what she appreciates, then maybe she loses story.  Maybe we all do.  If I don't come to her conclusions, I lose some measure of appreciation for her words.  Because she might be crazy.  Because I may or may not have the same feelings about Pont Neuf.

It's hard to tell, having no earthly idea what that is.

But I appreciate the way she appreciates it.  And that's story enough for me.

Pre-order Bread and Wine from Amazon today.  The book releases April 9.

Per federal regulations, I am required to tell you that in exchange for my blogging and digital reviews, Zondervan publishing provided a free copy of Bread and Wine for my perusal.  I must also tell you, as a matter of personal integrity, that I am being completely honest in my words and that the offer from Zondervan does not influence my opinion nor my statement. In the sixth grade, I once gave a book report that began, "This book was terrible.  Do not waste your time reading it."  The teacher pulled me into the hall and said I would get an F if I didn't change my tune, that the idea of a book report was to get people to read the book.  I took the F because I don't believe that; I believe in being honest about a book.  If it sucks, I'm going to tell you it sucks.  This book, Bread and Wine, does not suck.

Special Circumstances

One of the challenges Shauna Niequist addresses in her new book, Bread and Wine, is that of drawing people together around her table who all bring their own special circumstances.  That is, many of them have special dietary needs or preferences.

Her husband requires a gluten-free diet.  Other friends are vegetarians.  Or vegans.  Some probably wouldn't touch this or that food with a ten-foot fork.  Some require wheat-free options or whole grains or whole foods in general.  A pregnancy sensitivity takes this dish off the table, and another friend's preference eliminates that one.  You get the feeling that it's kind of a hassle to plan Shauna's table on any given occasion.

Yet she never says it is a burden.  Rather, a challenge.  And an important part of setting the table.

I couldn't agree more.

I say that knowing what it's like to be a woman with special circumstances.  It's embarrassing.  It's complicated.  It's exhausting.  Due to an underlying medical condition, I have some very weird, but common, things I cannot eat any more.  Paprika, for one, which is a hidden ingredient in so many things from tomato and barbecue sauces to bread crumbs for meatloaf.  Anything artificially blue, I cannot eat.  And no caffeine - which means no coffee, only decaf tea, and no chocolate.  (My mom always says she doesn't know how I do it.  No chocolate, that is.  But when it makes you so ill as it makes me, even one bite, it's not that hard to give up.)  Among other things.  And going into any meal with special circumstances, the one thing I can assure you that you overwhelmingly feel - at least I do - is rude.

You're rude because you might dare mention a few things beforehand, allowing your host to plan for such things.  You know, instead of simply being a gracious guest.  You're rude if you didn't say anything and now are pushing things aside on your plate, playing rather than eating because you can't be sure.  You're rude if you arrive a few minutes early and start scouting out the different courses, spying and smelling and maybe poking around a bit (ok, maybe not) to see if they are within your edibility range.  You're rude if you just ask the question, but ask it too late after everything's already prepared.  There's no easy way to be a person with special circumstances.  There's no way, it seems, to not be rude.

The grace with which Shauna welcomes all of these people around her table and does her best to feed them all set something free in me.  Something for food, yes, but something greater.

Because it's ministry.  It's Jesus.  It's meeting people where they are and embracing them as they wholly are and finding a way to nourish them, too.  It's making the special effort to make sure they can take part in this, that they not only have a place at the table but that there is something to set in front of them, too.  Something that won't kill them.

I'm thinking about the people I meet on a daily basis, each with their own set of circumstances.  I'm thinking about the ways I love people, how there can never be two same loves because love is defined by those very special circumstances that seem like such a hassle.  I'm thinking about the words I use, the heart I open, and the way I minister to people and I'm wondering if I do enough to meet them where they're at, to find a place around the table for them and to have something to set in front of them.

It's not easy.  You have to uncover a person's heart before you can figure out how best to speak truth with them and that means diving into their special circumstances.  It means not counting their life a burden but a challenge, not an obstacle but an opportunity.  It means finding that special way to feed them, understanding with grace that they feel rude for even having circumstances.  (I know I have.  You, too?)

We tend to think that in moments of greatest doubt, a person may want to hear the story of a faithful God.  Maybe.  But maybe not.  Maybe what they need to hear are other stories of doubt, without the resolution. Maybe you need to meet them in their doubt instead of trying to draw them out to hope.  

We think that in times of loss, a person may want to hear the story of the promised tomorrow.  Maybe.  But maybe not.  Maybe they'd rather you join them in their loss.

One of my friends once told me that the greatest "friend" moment she ever had was when she confessed to a close girlfriend how worn out, run down, and scared she was and how she just wanted to hide in her basement and cry.  Her friend's response?  "You let me know when, and I will sit in the basement and cry with you."

So many times, I hear stories of people offended by God because a well-meaning Christian friend has taken it upon themselves to answer the question nobody's asking, to set a plate in front of an aching soul that the heart cannot digest.  You don't stand with a newly-homeless family and loudly proclaim God's goodness.  You don't hold hands of a mother who just lost her child and declare the beautiful sacrifice of God's Son.  You don't come beside a friend just diagnosed with cancer and start expounding on the goodness of Heaven.  Nobody likes that God.  You have to figure out what story of God is going to feed them; not which one will make them sick at heart.  That's the story you tell.

It's so tempting, in ministry or in life in general, to think we know what people need.  It's easy to think it's our job to give them what seems like the answer to their troubles.  But the truth is that what anyone needs more than anything is to be honored.  That means understanding each heart's special circumstances and making a place for that.  Then accepting the challenge of figuring out what to set in front of them.

Nothing with paprika.  Nothing artificially blue.  And no chocolate.

Pre-order Bread and Wine from Amazon today.  The book releases April 9.

Per federal regulations, I am required to tell you that in exchange for my blogging and digital reviews, Zondervan publishing provided a free copy of Bread and Wine for my perusal.  I must also tell you, as a matter of personal integrity, that I am being completely honest in my words and that the offer from Zondervan does not influence my opinion nor my statement. In the sixth grade, I once gave a book report that began, "This book was terrible.  Do not waste your time reading it."  The teacher pulled me into the hall and said I would get an F if I didn't change my tune, that the idea of a book report was to get people to read the book.  I took the F because I don't believe that; I believe in being honest about a book.  If it sucks, I'm going to tell you it sucks.  This book, Bread and Wine, does not suck.

Hunger

As I was reading Bread and Wine, the new book by Shauna Niequist, I was, of course, thinking a great deal about hungry.  And not just because I heard my own stomach growling thinking about all the food.

Hunger, we think, is something holy.  It is an emptiness, a readiness to receive, an active searching for something nourishing.  It is holy, we say, to be hungry for God.  It is holy, we argue, to ritually fast and to go "without" for a time so that we can appreciate our normal life "with."  The more I was reading, though, the more I was taking in these stories around the table, the more I was realizing a harsh but humble truth:

There's nothing holy about hunger.

Hunger...is the preparation for holy.

All of these people walk in and out of Shauna's kitchen, sit down and get up from her table and the tables of friends, family, community.  They come in hungry, I'm sure, based purely on her reputation as a foodie alone.  They come in empty, ready to receive, searching for something nourishing.  Snacking on appetizers, snacking on ingredients, licking the spoon, maybe, and picking up a bacon-wrapped date on their way to the table.

And that's never the holy moment.

The holy moment comes when they're seated around the table.  When their plates are full and their mouths, equally so, their stomachs well on their way.  When they are swapping stories between bites of food, crumbs spittling out of their mouths because around such a table, it doesn't seem to me there's a whole lot of place for proper manners or taking turns.  It's this mess of story and meal and food and fellowship and all this sort of mixed up jumbled place that happens, yes, because they came hungry, but the holiness is not happening in the hunger.  It's happening in the ham steaks.  It's happening in the watermelon feta salad.  It's happening in the balsamic glazed pork loin.  It's happening in the dark chocolate mousse.  And it's happening in the hearts, drawn by the stomachs, of those in attendance.

See, holiness is never the hungry moment; the hungry moment is the setup.  It's the ache that invites us into the holy moment, this gnawing emptiness inside of us that drives us to the holy.  And the holy is in the food.

That can mean the food around the table, sure.  Of course it can.  Holiness can be found in tangible, literal, taste-able food.  Or it can be in the fellowship entangled in the table.  In the family stories, in the friendly recollections, in the community play unfolding around the table.  It can be there, but it doesn't have to be.

I'm thinking more of the spiritual disciplines now, when we fast in order to feast on God.  When we come hungry before Him.  We're so convinced there's something holy in our hunger, something righteous, even, in our emptiness.  But that's never the case.

The holiness comes in the nourishment of God's presence, when He dares enter into our emptiness with us and pour us something new to drink.  A new living water to fill us.  The holiness comes when God meets our hunger and satisfies our ache.  That's the holy moment.

Was there anything holy about a starving nation in a vast wilderness?  No.  But there was something holy about manna and quail.  They would never have known the provision of God without the hunger, but their emptiness does not say a thing about the holy; manna does.

Was there anything holy about thousands of people listening to Jesus, sitting on a hillside with stomachs grumbling because they'd been there three days and ran out of food two days ago?  No.  But there was something holy about the bread and the fish.  They would never have seen the miracle of Jesus had they not been hungry, but their hunger is no miracle; a little boy's lunchbox is.

I'm thinking of all the times I've been hungry in my life, and it's easy to fool myself into thinking in those moments that those were something holy.  That the gnawing, growling in my stomach had to be holy because it meant I was aching for something more.  But that aching is emptiness and nothing more; the holy is in the filling.  (And I prefer Bavarian creme, if we're talking fillings.  ...Ok, Bavarian creme and a bit of Jesus, on the side.)  The holy is what happens when you've got something pouring into you that satisfies your emptiness.  That's what is holy.

Just another thought I had while reading Shauna's new book.  Pre-order Bread and Wine from Amazon today.  The book releases April 9.

Per federal regulations, I am required to tell you that in exchange for my blogging and digital reviews, Zondervan publishing provided a free copy of Bread and Wine for my perusal.  I must also tell you, as a matter of personal integrity, that I am being completely honest in my words and that the offer from Zondervan does not influence my opinion nor my statement. In the sixth grade, I once gave a book report that began, "This book was terrible.  Do not waste your time reading it."  The teacher pulled me into the hall and said I would get an F if I didn't change my tune, that the idea of a book report was to get people to read the book.  I took the F because I don't believe that; I believe in being honest about a book.  If it sucks, I'm going to tell you it sucks.  This book, Bread and Wine, does not suck.

A Bread and Wine Fairy Tale

I have been honored over the past several weeks to preview a copy of Shauna Niequist's new book, Bread and Wine.  All this week, I will be sharing some thoughts here on my blog about this book, about what the stories meant to me, about my experience of reading it, all while encouraging you to run out and pick up a copy.  Because Bread and Wine releases April 9 (available for pre-order now).

Why all week?  Why five days of someone else's book on my blog?  Because I have that much to say about it.  And I think you'll enjoy it.

The book, I mean, and what little justice I am able to do it.

Bread and Wine is a story of the table.  Rather, it is a series of stories that happen at the table, a gathering of food and fellowship, a melting pot of lives and hearts and memories and moments.  The chapters are short, snippets of a scene that was, and most include a recipe at the end for you to try at home.  The end of the book includes a group (or cooking club) discussion guide, tips for weeknight meals, and hints for entertaining well.  This is clearly something Shauna does well.

Let me start by saying that I wanted to read this book like a fairy tale.  My own personal fairy tale, that kind of magical story that just sweeps you into this incredible land where these things actually happen.  Because going into it, I had all of these magical ideas about what the table, and food, and fellowship, could mean and I thought it was something I was craving in my life.  I had all these preconceived notions that this is kind of how I wanted to be - inviting, culinary, hosting people around my table and sharing in their lives and taking in the simple joy of something so easy, yet so meaningful, as food all while spending honest quality time with real people having a real time around a real meal on a real table. It sounds magical, doesn't it?

And after a handful of funerals, a smattering of family events, a season of holidays that seems to just now be finally drawing to a close, it seems to me that these moments around the table are something it's so easy to miss and maybe that's why I thought so highly of them, like these were the hidden moments that really defined what I was missing and if I could just slow down, settle in and be present to these kinds of things, I would find this happily ever after and this overwhelming joy that so many of the women I know seem to find in the food on their tables and the families and friends around them.

From chapter 1, the clock struck midnight and as I continued to read Bread and Wine, I realized with absolute clarity that this is not my fairy tale.  This book shattered that magic.

But I don't think that's a bad thing because at the same time, it wrapped my heart so tightly around something else that as I sit here to write, it's actually hard to think about what I thought going into the book.  It's much easier to think about all that I came out of it with.

Bread and Wine, for me, would be wasted as a fairy tale.  For me, it was a matter of story.  It was the telling of tales that took my heart.  It was the way that I could almost feel myself around Shauna's table, fumbling through her friend's kitchen, walking the streets of Paris...without, you know, all the work of actually being there.  It was the way I could imagine myself getting those late-night phone calls, adapting to those last-minute change of plans.  It was the way I got a feel for the people around Shauna's table, but not so obtrusively so that I failed to get a new feel for the people around mine.  Although, I wouldn't call mine a table.

Through Shauna's stories, I found a new something within me, which I will share in the coming days.  I found something I had long buried that finally, through the grace of her stories (which seem to have so little to do with mine), seems ok to have, to be, to live.  To love?  I found a new grace for myself and started to uncover all of these things that I'd hidden and somewhere in her stories, something set me free.

At the same time, I developed new eyes for the people around me, the men and women and friends and family and complete strangers in my life that are looking for a table.  A table to share with anyone; a table to share with me.  I was drawn into these stories that, more than food, were about the way we connect with one another and connect with ourselves, and it got me thinking about the way I connect with those around me, those I love even, even on the days when it doesn't seem I love them very much.  And thinking about the way they connect with me.  And wondering about, dreaming of, the ways to bridge the gap, to find the common ground.  The ways to make a table.

Those are some of the insights I'm going to be sharing as the week continues.  I hope you will stay and read with me; you'd be surprised how great an impact a book about seemingly food would have on the heart of a woman.  On this heart, at least.

A note about the recipes: I didn't try any of them.  (Sorry, Shauna.)  I normally read new recipes like they are some mystical, magical, secret potion and can't wait to try them.  None of these really tickled my fancy.  There were some that, for health reasons, I was unable to consider.  There were others which included ingredients for which I have no flavor reference, so they were hard to imagine and it seemed wasteful to try something I had no opinion on.  And there were others for which I would have to drive more than an hour just to find the ingredients, so that was out.  (Shauna committed the cardinal sin of recipe writing, as far as I'm concerned, and I say that somewhat jokingly.  She writes about things like almond meal, which you can "buy at the Whole Foods," like we can all just walk out our front door and venture into a Whole Foods and find these delicious, healthy ingredients.  I live in sub-rural Indiana where I don't have a Whole Foods, I have a Wal-Mart, and we don't have almond meal.  We don't have dates.  We don't have goat cheese.  They even stopped carrying my 100% Whole Wheat bagels.  And so while part me of is adventurous to think about such things, I am highly unlikely to invest in three hours of round-trip driving to acquire such things.)  Which isn't to say I don't think the recipes would be good.  Everything I know about cooking says that they would be, says that these things might actually be delicious.  And if you're a foodie, I would absolutely encourage you to try them.

It's just that, primarily, when I realized this wasn't going to be a book about food for me, that this wasn't the fairy tale feast I had hungrily anticipated going into it, I also did not want to distract myself with the food.  I didn't want to draw away from the story.

So try the recipes.  Please.  And let me know what you think.  I'm still interested in that; it just became so much more to me.

And keep coming back all week as I share more of what Bread and Wine spoke into my heart.

Pre-order Bread and Wine from Amazon today.  The book releases April 9.

Per federal regulations, I am required to tell you that in exchange for my blogging and digital reviews, Zondervan publishing provided a free copy of Bread and Wine for my perusal.  I must also tell you, as a matter of personal integrity, that I am being completely honest in my words and that the offer from Zondervan does not influence my opinion nor my statement. In the sixth grade, I once gave a book report that began, "This book was terrible.  Do not waste your time reading it."  The teacher pulled me into the hall and said I would get an F if I didn't change my tune, that the idea of a book report was to get people to read the book.  I took the F because I don't believe that; I believe in being honest about a book.  If it sucks, I'm going to tell you it sucks.  This book, Bread and Wine, does not suck.