It's a combination of light and heavy. It's crunchy and crisp. At times soft and sparkly. Strong, honest, energetic, full of passion and yet vulnerable and broken. Shauna Niequist's new book "Bread and Wine" created mixtures of emotions, of textures and flavors that transported me to delicious places of the world and yet anchored and centered me to one place, a table, where life and relationships are shared, munched, chewed, digested. I love how Shauna shared snippets of her life and the inclusion of recipes at the end of each essay. Her life experiences ignited different textures, smells, consistencies, tastes just like the combinations of the ingredients in a recipe. "Bread and Wine" stirred up my senses and imagination urging me to rush to the kitchen and enjoy every moment of not only cooking but more importantly serving the people I love and sharing not just the food but the bits and pieces of my own heart.
"Bread and Wine" is a combination, not only of taste but it also vibrated a rhythm of crescendos and diminuendos, like fire and water, boiling, steaming, simmering, as Shauna opens her joys and pains, of surprises and anticipations, of predictabilities and uncertainties,some of the very ingredients that create life. Essentials.
Being our Pastor's daughter, I've seen Shauna not just through her books but as part of the family of the big church we go to. Some stories in the book mentioned names that are familiar and knowing their stories is like sharing the sumptuous beauty of life that God intended for His family. It was encouraging to read how their lives intersected and grew through conversations around the table, over food, over bread and wine. The book brought me some flashbacks of my own precious moments shared over meals with family, friends, even strangers that played parts in my own story.
It always excites me to invite people at home and like Shauna, I love conversations, sharing laughters and tears and joys and pains, on the table. That's why I share the same reaction as Brene Brown, New York bestselling author in her review of the book, I couldn't put the book down. It so happened at the time I was reading the book, I had a terrible cough for three weeks and my husband wanted me to just rest and lay on the couch while he did my usual chores. So I had the time to really read.
Most of all, the book kindled a new fire in my heart to remember the Lord Jesus not just during the communion time in the Church but every time I am on a table. It impassioned in me how God Himself shared His last moments on earth on the table with His disciples and how in Revelation 3:20, Jesus knocking on the door and whoever opens the door, He will come in and He will share a meal with the person just like a friend. Wow, the table, the meal, the bread and wine indeed play a big part in God's plan. Jesus Himself is the Bread of Life. The wine, His blood that was shed on the cross. "Bread and Wine" for me is an invitation to life, a life in Christ. And that life is meant to be shared to the people God sends our way, to be loved, nurtured, fed.
It is a blessing to be reminded of the essence of the table, the tastes and flavors, the conversations, life shared, munched, chewed, digested.
Let's come to the table.
Click on this link: "Bread and Wine" or check it out at Amazon for more information.
Nice review. Where did you get a copy? I thought its not yet published.
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