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Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion

4.03 of 5 stars 4.03 · rating details · 1,408 ratings · 248 reviews

“Mine is a personal story of an unexpected and terribly inconvenient Christian conversion, told by a very unlikely convert.”
–Sara Miles

Raised as an atheist, Sara Miles lived an enthusiastically secular life as a restaurant cook and a writer. Then early one winter morning, for no earthly reason, she wandered into a church. “I was certainly not interested in becoming a Chris...more “Mine is a personal story of an unexpected and terribly inconvenient Christian conversion, told by a very unlikely convert.”
–Sara Miles

Raised as an atheist, Sara Miles lived an enthusiastically secular life as a restaurant cook and a writer. Then early one winter morning, for no earthly reason, she wandered into a church. “I was certainly not interested in becoming a Christian,” she writes, “or, as I thought of it rather less politely, a religious nut.” But she ate a piece of bread, took a sip of wine, and found herself radically transformed.

The mysterious sacrament of communion has sustained Miles ever since, in a faith she’d scorned, in work she’d never imagined. In this astonishing story, she tells how the seeds of her conversion were sown, and what her life has been like since she took that bread.

A lesbian left-wing journalist who covered revolutions around the world, Miles was not the woman her friends expected to see suddenly praising Jesus. She was certainly not the kind of person the government had in mind to run a “faith-based charity.” Religion for her was not about angels or good behavior or piety; it was about real hunger, real food, and real bodies. Before long, she turned the bread she ate at communion into tons of groceries, piled on the church’s altar to be given away. The first food pantry she established provided hundreds of poor, elderly, sick, deranged, and marginalized people with lifesaving food and a sense of belonging. Within a few years, the loaves had multiplied, and she and the people she served had started nearly a dozen more pantries.

Take This Bread is rich with real-life Dickensian characters–church ladies, child abusers, millionaires, schizophrenics, bishops, and thieves–all blown into Miles’s life by the relentless force of her newfound calling. She recounts stories about trudging through the rain in housing projects, wiping the runny nose of a psychotic man, storing a battered woman’s .375 Magnum in a cookie tin. She writes about the economy of hunger and the ugly politics of food; the meaning of prayer and the physicality of faith. Here, in this achingly beautiful, passionate book, is the living communion of Christ.
“The most amazing book.” – Anne Lamott(less)

Hardcover, 304 pages

Published February 20th 2007 by Ballantine Books (first published 2007)

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Jul 01, 2007 John Beeler rated it 2 of 5 stars

In her introduction, Miles claims to have bridged the chasm between liberal Christianity and right-wing/fundamentalist Christianity.

But what that amounts to, basically, is saying "hi" to a guy with a KJV in the front seat of his pickup. Otherwise, fundies play the one-dimensional role they usually do.

Aspires to nuance but never gets there.

11 likes · like · see review

Dec 11, 2007 Angie rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoir

I didn't necessarily "enjoy" reading this book while I was actually reading it. I felt uncomfortable and challenged, not by the language but by some of the opinions and views. This author and I couldn't be more different, and I'm sure she'd strongly disapprove of my LDS religion (even the liberal wing of the Episcopalian church was far too conservative for her). Nonetheless, as Sara Miles took me along on her journey from atheist to Christian, unflichingly laying out her biases and weaknesses, I...more

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Apr 12, 2009 Dave rated it 4 of 5 stars

Sara Miles' conversion memoir is a great change from many books about Christianity and spiritual life, whose main selling points are their emphasis on religion as opposed to form or readability. I've found it hard to gut out many contemporary Christian books, too fat tracts of abused English. Miles' spare writing unflinchingly examines her route from an upbringing with atheist parents, to reporting on insurgent conflicts around the world to wandering into a church in San Francisco and finding a...more

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Jul 26, 2011 Lou rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Lou by: Jenny

Shelves: spiritual

I am enjoying this book and the author's insight/ perspective into Christianity. Thank you Jenny for recommending it to me. Now that I have finished it I can say that the author's comments on the various disparate "Christians" that she comes in contact with are replete with full and clear facts. For anyone who has worked with a faith based non profit you will recognize these characters. The "blue hairs" who want to do good but don't want to soil the doilies on the tables, the hypocrites and the...more

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Jun 08, 2011 Laura Engelken rated it 2 of 5 stars

It's true. I'm a sucker for cover art. Tell me, how could I turn down book that uses Gothic typeface and an image of a cross made with a jelly sandwich on Wonder Bread?

I was actually checking the library stacks for another memoir when this book caught my eye. It was a serendipitous discovery, as I'd just had an email exchange with a colleague regarding her frustration that students had "politicized" the Eucharist (a.k.a communion). Specifically, students wearing rainbow pins during mass on thei...more

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Apr 17, 2011 Jenny rated it 4 of 5 stars

Take This Bread is a memoir of Sara Miles, an athiest and a lesbian who has a sudden conversion to Christianity. As she discovers the grace of God that is unending and free, so she mirrors that to her community by beginning a food pantry at her church in San Francisco. Throughout her life she has been drawn to food and discovers through her religious practice that food is what connects us to God and one another.

I really enjoyed reading this book, and have discovered that I really enjoy reading t...more

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Dec 05, 2008 Rebecca rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommended to Rebecca by: Angela Gay

It’s so hard to put into a few short words how much this book affected me and resonated with me; I could write a paper, not just a blurb. But, I start winter quarter in two days, so after thinking about it for several days, I am finally putting pen to paper, so to speak, however imperfectly. I will just describe a few things that affected me the most and hope that you will read the book for yourself. (I apologize, in advance, for the length.)

Sara Miles conversion experience begins when she, as...more It’s so hard to put into a few short words how much this book affected me and resonated with me; I could write a paper, not just a blurb. But, I start winter quarter in two days, so after thinking about it for several days, I am finally putting pen to paper, so to speak, however imperfectly. I will just describe a few things that affected me the most and hope that you will read the book for yourself. (I apologize, in advance, for the length.)

Sara Miles conversion experience begins when she, as a left-wing liberal lesbian, walks into an Episcopal church in San Francisco, takes communion and suddenly and radically experiences Jesus. She admits she can’t explain what happened, she felt knocked over, she was dazed. “That impossible word, Jesus, lodged in me like a crumb . . . indisputably in my body now, as if I’d swallowed a radioactive pellet that would outlive my own flesh.” Miles slowly starts to navigate her feelings and try to understand communion. I have never felt too comfortable myself with the idea of consubstantiation, and maybe not even transubstantiation; I think I was always more comfortable with the symbolism of the Eucharist. But Miles makes a great point that we all “eat another person” when we are fed by our mothers in the womb. I had never thought of the interesting connection between this and “eating Jesus” before. What a gripping idea.

Miles continue to cling to the idea of communion as central to the Christianity she is experiencing. She couldn’t stop thinking about the story where Jesus continually tells Paul to “feed my sheep.” This eventually leads her to open a food pantry at her church. The pantry brings her into contact with all kinds of homeless, psychotic, and marginalized people. By feeding and touching these folks, Miles realizes that she could not be a Christian by herself, and states “You can’t hope to see God without opening yourself to all God’s creation.” In a time when much of the main-stream media focuses on Christians that promote exclusion, it was so moving for me to connect with this author and focus on the inclusivity of Christianity. After all, Jesus ate with the outcasts of society. If we could only do this today, Christianity would truly be a force to be reckoned with.

I also deeply appreciated how Miles did not chastise and belittle extreme right-wing Christians. This impressed and inspired me. She held a liturgy at her church shortly after the Iraq war broke out in 2003 where members of her church just stood and spoke their testimonies about the war. As everyone felt very strongly and very differently, Miles stated, “Being a Christian in wartime, for me was turning out to be the opposite of having ‘God on our side.’ It meant expanding not just a personal capacity to suffer but the personal and institutional capacity to dwell in ambiguity and unsettledness. It occurred to me that the church was a place, maybe the only place, where that could happen.” Miles writes that early in her conversion experience, she sometimes felt superior to some right-wing Christians. However, she finally came to realize Christianity meant how alike we all are, and that she could experience Christ through all kinds of Christians, even those very different from her. I have many right and left-wing Christian friends, and Miles’ realization struck home with me. After reading American Wife, this book again renewed my commitment not to judge others, but to just receive the wonderful things we all have to offer.

As she works with the food pantry, Miles begins to experience not just the receiving, but also the giving away of food as a sacrament. She comes to believe that the point of church is not to encourage people to attend, but “to feed them, so they can go out and, you know, be Jesus.” This realization touched me. Of course, as a Southerner, I have always thought of food as pretty close to religion (right after football). But, I don’t think I realized how hungry I was for the sacrament of communion too. It’s the sharing of the bread with everyone without exception, not just with others like us in a church building, (Miles fervently states and I agree) that brings us close to the divine. Most of my religious experience has been through contemplative worship in a church, which I believe is very important, but Miles has truly inspired me to find the time to volunteer at a food pantry locally and share this communion of Christ.
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Apr 20, 2008 Jessica rated it 2 of 5 stars Recommends it for: people interested in church and social change

I was so excited to read this book after I read reviews of it, but I ended up being disappointed. The basic storyline is that the author Sara Miles, a lesbian atheist, converts to Christianity and starts a food bank at her church because she believes that really fulfills Jesus' commands to the Church. And I will say that her work to start a food bank and her beliefs about how that fulfills Jesus' work today I totally agree with. But, as a liberal Christian I find her church and her other beliefs...more

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Feb 09, 2009 melanie (lit*chick) rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: memoirs

I have a fascination with spiritual memoirs. Seeing how Jesus meets people in personal and unpredicatable ways strengthens my faith. And while I don't share most of Sara Miles' views (theological or political), I do share her connection with feeding people as an outward working of the Spirit. I think food and hospitality get a bum rap, but the act of sharing a meal is most intimate, particularly with strangers.
I found her account of opening a food pantry to be challenging, honest, and inspiring....more

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Nov 13, 2011 Mary added it

The three stars may be a bit generous but that's because I like the overall subject matter. It's nice to see representation from a progressive Christian. That said, I found her writing so repetitive and the food analogy overused. For the love of all the bread in the word...the freaking food analogy! That dead horse was beat to a pulp.

Sara was a bit too holier than thou for me. Her writing smacks of the irritating stereotype of a religious convert who is blessed enough to discover something the...more

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Dec 06, 2008 Christy rated it 3 of 5 stars

Sara Miles was a single mother, a left-wing atheist lesbian activist when she walked into St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church and spontaneously participated in communion. Finding herself suddenly and embarrassingly moved by her experience, she decided to return.
Miles writes about the difficulties of conversion when nothing about her newfound religion made any sense to her – not the evangelists, the dogmatisms, the theological concepts, or the inner ecclesiastical rifts. For her, religion was...more

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Aug 30, 2012 Dnicebear rated it 4 of 5 stars

The first few chapters lagged for me, but then I began folding down page corners to be sure to return to something there, and I ended with fifty or more foldings. The first one happens when Ms Miles is living as an organizer and reporter in El Salvador during guerrilla offensives.

"Long before I went to church or ran a food pantry, wars would reveal my weaknesses and mistakes--sins, to use a word that never occurred to me then--and make me find a way to continue working, past shame. They showed m...more The first few chapters lagged for me, but then I began folding down page corners to be sure to return to something there, and I ended with fifty or more foldings. The first one happens when Ms Miles is living as an organizer and reporter in El Salvador during guerrilla offensives.

"Long before I went to church or ran a food pantry, wars would reveal my weaknesses and mistakes--sins, to use a word that never occurred to me then--and make me find a way to continue working, past shame. They showed me how helpless I was to save anyone, or to fix suffering, and how it mattered anyway for me to be there with people. I'd have to learn to receive when I was proud and give when I was burned-out and poke around in strange places without knowing what I was going to uncover." (p50)

So, she survives being with people in war, and ends up moving and raising a daughter in the Bay Area. One day, she, who was raised atheist, discovers Jesus at the table of Eucharist, and "that impossible word, Jesus, lodged in me like a crumb. I said it over and over to myself, as if repetition would help me understand. I had no idea what it meant; I didn't know what to do with it. But it was...indisputably in my body now, as if I'd swallowed a radioactive pellet that would outlive me own flesh." (p 59)

Ms Miles starts and sustains a food bank and various other kinds of feedings at the same table where she met Jesus, and she and the feedings evolve. My final page folding involves her talking to folks who couldn't believe she might be a Christian because Christians are corny, sentimental, vulgar, embarrassing, intolerant, superstitious, dogmatic, self-righteous, do-goody, obtuse, smug, unsophisticated and dumb. "They thought I wasn't like that, so I couldn't be a 'real' Christian. But I was like that. I wasn't more enlightened or less enamored of my own piety or purer. Christianity, if it was all I'd come to believe, demanded that I understand exactly how like everyone else I was. An it was this realization that would not go away, even as I battled with costs of faith." (p 262)

Not your ordinary conversion.(less)

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Jun 15, 2012 Lianne added it

I loved this passionate, honest and brave memoir. The author, a lesbian and atheist, wanders into an episcopal church in San Francisco.Eventually she takes the leap of receiving communion. The experience moves her deeply.
She is fed both spiritually and through the power of bread as reality. Once a journalist who covered political upheaval in Central America, she understands that eating the simplest food together can bind people to each other in a powerful way. Building on the practice of radical...more

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Oct 03, 2011 Jon Stout rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: epicures and atheists

Recommended to Jon by: Andrew Butler

Shelves: religion

Sara Miles developed a thriving ministry of offering food to the needy, a food pantry like you’ve never seen before. In this autobiographical book, she describes a background of working in restaurants in New York City, of studying in Mexico City during the student riots of 1968, and of reporting from Central America during the Reagan-Sandinista War. Settling in San Francisco, she joined St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church, an artsy, liberal, innovative congregation, and started thinking about the imp...more

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Mar 14, 2011 Cheryl rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: christianity

Many parts of this book were profoundly disturbing to me as I read them in light of the painful transitions at my church and some long-brewing thoughts I've had about the potential of the emergent church movement. I gave it 5 stars because it hit its mark with me. As I was sitting in the adult educational class of my most definitely not-emerging, not-radical suburban white professional-class church, I was listening to the pastor's presentation about the nature of the church in Lutheranism throug...more Many parts of this book were profoundly disturbing to me as I read them in light of the painful transitions at my church and some long-brewing thoughts I've had about the potential of the emergent church movement. I gave it 5 stars because it hit its mark with me. As I was sitting in the adult educational class of my most definitely not-emerging, not-radical suburban white professional-class church, I was listening to the pastor's presentation about the nature of the church in Lutheranism through a different lens because I had just finished this book. The Church is distinguished from secular social service agencies because of the Word and the Sacraments. And that is exactly the central passion that Miles develops in the creation of the food pantry at St. Gregory of Nyssa in San Francisco. As she describes her work with the pantry, she begins to see that feeding people and developing relationships with them is a sacramental practice. This is the strongest takeaway lesson: as you go deeper and deeper into the book, you begin to accept her experience that not putting limits on giving can lead to "seeing Christ" in others in very powerful ways.

St. Gregory of Nyssa is a church that is the epitome of a reawakening to the power of liturgy and the centrality of the Eucharist. Their mission is to make the sacraments relevant and inclusive for everyone who might come in off the street, with a particular welcome for the LGBT community that lives in San Francisco. But the "outsiders" they attract are mostly educated, liberal, reasonably well-off people, like Sara Miles, who were attracted by the beauty and meaning the worship gave to them. When relative newcomer Sara felt called to give away groceries in the sanctuary every Friday, her expanded understanding of welcoming strangers and outsiders bred conflict with the long-time members who were finding refuge in the status quo of their own "inclusion." Here is where the book is a cautionary tale for any church looking for renewal through the "emerging church" movement or formulas for attracting new demographics: people still end up creating a comfortable status quo and establishing boundaries and rules and hurdles to inclusion just like old-fashioned mainstream churches. Miles's attempts to remain in fellowship with those who resist her proposals and with enemies are painful and honest, but of course she can't provide a universal answer for such a basic question.

Some parts of the book were boring because she was going over well-worn information about the politics of the Episcopal church in the 1990s/2000s, but of course that was necessary for many readers. More importantly, I felt she glossed over the effect on her family of her deepening involvement with the pantry--it was a very late chapter and her conclusion was a blithe "of course I won't abandon my family," rather than an honest confrontation about another Gospel tenet: that Jesus asks his followers to leave their families behind for total commitment to him. That is something that I was disturbed about in Three Cups of Tea as well: the disjuncture between the relationships in the cause and the relationships at home. Does taking up a cross and following it wherever it leads inevitably demand this? Is this the only path to true Christian commitment? Or is it just the unbalanced charging ahead of the true believer who gets a rush out of the exotic and the dangerous and the crusade?

This is the tension I'll be pondering: While Miles is persuasive about the power of the Meal, I'm not sure that I could participate in such a "Martha" ministry without a lot of beautiful and reflective worship in a more limited community and family to balance the turmoil of such an all-consuming set of relationships with whoever crosses the threshold. I don't condemn the St. Gregory members who loved the "Mary" peace and contemplation of their Sundays and worried about losing that time of healing and refuge in the Word and Sacrament. Not everyone has a spiritual adviser, as Miles does, to meet with every morning, and sometimes the hardest relationships to practice Christianity in are those of everyday life with family and friends and at work and in business--the ordinary sort of Christianity C.S. Lewis speaks of.
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Dec 11, 2010 Stacy Gahlman-schroeder rated it 4 of 5 stars

Take This Bread by Sara Miles

Sara Miles is an Episcopalian lay person who came to faith as an adult. Take This Bread is her faith journey and correlation between the sacrament of communion and what some call, Gospel Hospitality. Sara takes the reader through her relationships, her careers, her frustrations with organized religion, and her joys with the many people she met and served.

Overall, I would recommend this book, particularly for people working in ministry. Sara provides a great story, w...more

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Jul 18, 2010 Natalie rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: for-fun

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I'd been wanting to read it for a long time, but was never able to find a copy in my local bookstores--I just acquired an e-reader and discovered that there was an e-book edition, so I snapped it up.

One thing really bothered me about this book, and that was the way Miles described the appearance of a lot of the people her food pantry serves. Every time she describes a fat person who is coming to the food pantry or is having food pantry food delivered, they ar...more

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Mar 10, 2010 Kathryn rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: spiritual, non-fiction

After reading the description on the back, I realize I was hoping this book would be something like a "how-to" manual for converting to Christianity: "How to have that lightning-bolt experience even when you haven't been trying very hard." However, Sara doesn't go much into the "why" of her conversion, because she doesn't really understand it herself. She was instantly converted to Christianity, and instead of having all her doubts removed in a blinding flash, she ends up staying the same, often...more

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Oct 24, 2009 Jennifer rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: liberal religious folks

Recommended to Jennifer by: Anne Keith Holt

Shelves: memoir-autobiography, non-fiction, religion

This is the story of unlikely conversion: A radical lesbian activist, who spend much of her youth involved in people's uprisings in Mexico & Central America, one day walks into a church, receives communion, and is transformed. She becomes filled with the idea of "sharing the body," which for her becomes a command to feed the people. Which leads her to setting up a weekly food bank in the church, and then to helping others in the city start new food banks as well, challenging her congregation...more

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Apr 14, 2009 Anita rated it 4 of 5 stars

In Sara Miles’ “Take this Bread,” the reader boards a turbo-charged, ideology-as-liquid energy -infused romp: from her early days as a an atheist, lesbian, left-wing journalist in war-torn Nicaraugua to her return to the United States and the impoverished inner-city streets of San Francisco, where , after reluctantly but whole-heartedly acknowledging that she feels a deep and all-encompassing call to Christianity and the unequivocal call to action such faith imposes, she single-handedly resolves...more In Sara Miles’ “Take this Bread,” the reader boards a turbo-charged, ideology-as-liquid energy -infused romp: from her early days as a an atheist, lesbian, left-wing journalist in war-torn Nicaraugua to her return to the United States and the impoverished inner-city streets of San Francisco, where , after reluctantly but whole-heartedly acknowledging that she feels a deep and all-encompassing call to Christianity and the unequivocal call to action such faith imposes, she single-handedly resolves to turn the church’s sanctuary into a food pantry to feed what would become more than 500 of the city’s hungry and homeless every week.
To say that Miles is powered by conviction is an understatement.
Which, is why, I believe, she took her new-found faith so seriously and approached it with understandable hesitation. “Mine is a personal story of an unexpected and terribly inconvenient conversion,” she states in the introduction.
Inconvenient because, according to Miles, she stumbled into faith at the precise moment when right-wing American Christianity was ascendant, and religion worldwide was rife with fundamentalism and exclusionary ideological crusades.
“And so I became a Christian, claiming a faith that many of my fellow believers want to exclude me from; following a God my unbelieving friends see as archaic superstition. At a time when Christianity in America is popularly represented by ecstatic teen crusaders in suburban mega churches, slick preachers claiming the “gospel” of prosperity, and shrewd political organizers who rail against evolution, gay marriage, and stem cell research… Why would any thinking person become a Christian? How can one reconcile the hateful politics of much contemporary Christianity with Jesus’ imperative to love?”
Miles’ answer to that question is to create an outreach mission and insist that her church be supportive, or at least not get in the way.
Miles’ability to channel her conviction into social action is exemplary. But there were times when her absolute, unequivocal insistence that her mission not be impeded by the desires of others (including church members) caused frustration. And I have to admit, there were moments when I was grateful she came to me in the printed word rather than spoken, so that I could quell the fevered pitch by simply closing the cover, and returning when I had more energy.
One caveat for casual readers of religious memoir, such as me -- Miles uses a sizable portion of this book to discuss theological concepts in detail – If you’re not in the mood for some church, you might want to wait till the timing is right.
Ultimately, it is Miles’ ability to tell her story in such a funny, engaging and forthright manner that make her, and her story, infectious and inspiring. With what our nation is up against these days, we could use a few more like her.
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Dec 02, 2010 Asher Gregory rated it 2 of 5 stars

At the start I really liked this book but after a while she started to get really dull and repetitive. I found I liked a great deal of her open communion theology and he living out the life of Jesus and living her Christianity. But she got to be so repetitive about her entire seeing communion in everything. Over and over and over and over again. Until it just got exasperating. She also is a little too obsessed with her faith after a while. She actually becomes a bit of a fanatic and I do think s...more

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Nov 17, 2010 Michael Cremin rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: religion

Some books I read. Others I inhale. Take This Bread is an example of the later. I have been wanting to read this book for a few years, ever since I saw the author interviewed on Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, so I finally picked up the paperback on Saturday night. I absolutely loved it.

Sara Miles is a far-- f a r --left wing sort of political person who spent the better part of the 1980s actually living with Communist guerrillas and Sandinistas in Central America. She is a gay woman who has nev...more Some books I read. Others I inhale. Take This Bread is an example of the later. I have been wanting to read this book for a few years, ever since I saw the author interviewed on Religion and Ethics Newsweekly, so I finally picked up the paperback on Saturday night. I absolutely loved it.

Sara Miles is a far-- f a r --left wing sort of political person who spent the better part of the 1980s actually living with Communist guerrillas and Sandinistas in Central America. She is a gay woman who has never held a steady job (she's a freelance writer) who loves living in uber-Lefty San Francisco. Long story short, we don't have a hell of a lot in common, but when I started to read her book, I came across this line in the first few pages: "Mine is a personal story of an unexpected and terribly inconvenient Christian conversion, told by a very unlikely convert." Perhaps we have some things in common after all.

When Ms. Miles randomly enters a sort of progressive Episcopal church in California, sort of on a lark, her life is completely turned upside down after she participates in the Eucharist. She begins to learn about, and practice, Christianity, then becomes totally enthralled by the whole thing. She experiences what St. Paul called metanoia: a total change of heart (she doesn't actually use that word, but that's what it is). As she begins to learn more and more about Jesus and the radical message of the Gospel, she becomes more and more active in the church, then opens up a food bank in the church, then opens a dozen other food banks in the roughest parts of San Francisco. Her observations about 'religion' as opposed to the message of Jesus are quite profound, and I found her thinking echoing my own in many different ways. "Church," as Catholics and Protestants practice it in this country, would be utterly unrecognizable to Jesus. Church, as Ms. Miles sees it, is helping the helpless, forming communities that include everyone, and sharing in the joys and sorrows of each others lives. She is echoing other writers who I admire (Shane Clairborne, Rob Bell, Brian McLaren)but hers is a particularly powerful voice as her sexuality is such a hot-button topic in the Episcopal denomination, and within Christianity in general. (Personally I have nothing but deep admiration for any gay person who calls him/herself a Christian since much of the toxic slime that is flung up in our culture about homosexuality comes from conservative Christians. Talk about faith!)

In any event, every Friday in her church, all people all welcome to come and take food. It sounds so simple, but it is a truly radical proposition: All are welcome at the table. All. Just the way they are, and just the way Jesus would have liked it.

I absolutely loved this book, and I am already looking forward to her next one. Were I to recommend a good book about what it means to be a Christian in the 21st century in America, this would be in my top three. It's fantastic. (less)

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Feb 21, 2011 Katie M. rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Katie M. by: Jenna

A recommendation from my favorite seminarian. At first Miles drove me bonkers - she spends the first half of the book describing all the ways in which brown people like her (they fed her their last bowl of soup in warn-torn Nicaragua! they took her under their wing in working-class New York!), glossing over some sorely-needed class analyses, badmouthing conservative Christians, and just generally being sort of judgey and unlikeable. But then the second part of the book, when the food pantry real...more

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Aug 30, 2011 Kristjan Wager rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: abandoned, religion

Boring, and not particularly well written.

Apparently atheists are supposed to be impressed by the spirituality of this book, but speaking personally I found it uninteresting and unfathomable. Perhaps if I had grown up in a culture soaked in Christianity it would have made more sense, or might have interested me.

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Oct 01, 2009 Patty rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2009, autobiography, biography, california, christianity, community, cooking, faith, family, food, friendship, grace, holy-communion, listening, memoir, non-fiction, prayer, religion, spiritual-journey, spirituality, women-writers, women-and-religion, san-francisco, god, hospitality, episcopalian

This book made me cry. Sara Miles' story is just amazing. Her conversion to Christianity seems almost mythical. How little we understand when we feed ourselves and others Holy Communion. Kudos to St. Gregory's for making sure that all strangers are welcome to their services and most importantly welcome to the Table.

When I grow up - I want to be Sara Miles. I try very hard to be hospitable. I really like making sure that people are fed. But my understanding of "feed my sheep" is nothing compared...more

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Jan 19, 2011 Lee Harmon rated it 5 of 5 stars

Inspiring, honest, and deeply moving, by the end of Sara's story you'll love this lesbian, left-wing atheist as much as any of the other Christians of God's flock. It's hard to remember a book I enjoyed more.

On a whim one day, Sara walked into a church, ate a bit of bread, sipped a bit of wine, and underwent "a radical conversion." While never overcoming her skepticism about God, she nevertheless embraced the church ... but the Christianity she embraced had no use for angels or worship or dreams...more

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Oct 13, 2011 Tad Hopp rated it 5 of 5 stars

I found myself very fascinated by this book. Her story of transformation from atheist to Christian seemed to have many parallels with my own faith journey. I liked what she had to say about communion and how much it can represent to many people. I loved her point that Christianity is about relationships because that matches with one of my personal beliefs about the faith as well. I think that Sara Miles and I could sit down and have a great conversation about faith, Christianity, helping others...more

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Nov 03, 2009 Ellen rated it 3 of 5 stars

The premise of this book compelled me to request it from the library, and I certainly found parts of it interesting, insightful, and inspiring. But, by about the halfway point, I began feeling like I was reading the same stories and thoughts over and over. At a certain point, it felt like Miles was hitting the reader over the head with her beliefs about communion and Jesus' radical inclusivity, which she feels is most illustrated (then and now) in the breaking of bread. Although Miles is a self-...more

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May 10, 2012 Bethany Joy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites, books-i-ve-reviewed, glbt-issues

This book made me laugh, cry, pray, struggle, and hope; which are all good things in a book that is really about the Kingdom of God. This is a story of how God breaks into people's lives and turns the order of our world on its head. The book is about communion, food and the Jesus who broke bread with the least of these. It would be a fascinating story even if Sara Miles was not a talented writer, but the fact that she is makes it a truly enjoyable paradigm bumping book.

p.s. While it is not the f...more

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Mar 05, 2013 Phil rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book has some fine things about it. It is, in essence, a conversion story of an unusual type, at least today. The writer, a lesbian left-wing journalist, experience an open communion service at an Episcopalian church and not only convertes, but opens us a food pantry in her church which catches on in the neighbourhood. Miles writes engagingly and honestly about her struggles with her conversion and with other Christians. Her honesty is one of the best qualities of the book.

Yet, I find mysel...more

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Spirituality

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Food And Drink > Food

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Quotes from Take This Bread: A Rad...

“It doesn't promise to solve or erase suffering but to transform it, pledging that by loving one another, even through pain, we will find more life. And it insists that by opening ourselves to strangers, the despised or frightening or unintelligible other, we will see more and more of the holy, since, without exception, all people are one body: God's.” — 6 people liked it

“Faith, for me, isn't an argument, a catechism, a philosophical “proof.” It is instead a lens, a way of experiencing life, and a willingness to act.” — 5 people liked it

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