| Bishop's Corner
The Bread Of Life
By Bishop Timothy W. Whitaker
 One of my
spiritual resources for living is poetry. Poetry is a means of becoming
attentive to what is real, and attentiveness to reality is a way of
maintaining one’s sanity in the midst of a culture in which truth is
ever distorted by sin.
William Stafford wrote of the power of poetry in
his poem “Poetry” in “Even in Quiet Places” (Confluence Press,
1996):
Its door opens near. It’s a shrine
by the road, it’s a flower in the parking lot
of the Pentagon, it says, “Look around,
listen. Feel the air.” It interrupts
international telephone lines with a tune.
When traffic lines jam, it gets out
and dances on the bridge. If great people
get distracted by fame they forget
this essential kind of breathing
and they die inside their gold shell.
When caravans cross deserts
it is the secret treasure hidden under the jewels.
Sometimes commanders take us over, and they
try to impose their whole universe,
how to succeed by daily calculation:
I can’t eat that bread.
Yes, the human spirit hungers for a bread that
rulers, engineers and celebrities cannot provide. There is more to life
than what we find in national power, technology and entertainment. The
bread for which we hunger is the celebration of life as the good gift of
God and the creation of a world in which all peoples can join this
celebration by establishing justice and peace.
Isaiah asked, “Why do you spend your money for
that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy?”
(Isaiah 55:2). The hope of the world is God’s gift of Jesus Christ who
came saying, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never
be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty” (John
6:35).
|
