Making Bread

“Love doesn’t just sit there like a stone, it has to be made, like bread; remade all the time, made new.” ~ Ursula K. Le Guin

My husband is the bread maker in our family. Our grandchildren love his buns. And so the bread-making machine comes out whenever they are expected so that there might be freshly baked buns, still warm from the oven, for them to enjoy. There might be buns in the freezer that we could just warm up. But no, new bread must be made.

And so it is with love, according to Ursula K. Le Guin. I had never thought before of love needing to be remade, made new.

We have all heard many sermons about Love, how we are loved by God and therefore must love others in the same way. Indeed ‘God is Love’ is a familiar saying taken from 1 John:4. In fact as The Message Bible put it: ‘Everyone who loves is born of God and experiences a relationship with God.’ And therein lies the clue… we are not only born of God but we also have a relationship with God.

Whenever you have a relationship with someone else, that relationship continues. It is very unusual for a relationship just to end abruptly. Relationships are not static. Although they continue to evolve some parts of them remain the same, like the buns my husbands makes for our adult grandchildren. However if they are healthy relationships those parts become smaller and smaller over time allowing new things to become part of the relationship.

In the same way, our relationship, that Love we have for God, also does not remain static. At least if it does then something needs to change! And that is where organized religion runs into trouble.

Once any idea becomes more than an idea, the expectations as to what exactly it means begin. Over time these cease to be expectations and become the way things must be done. Questioning is no longer easily tolerated. The way ahead is fixed! Change is feared. The ‘new bread’ is no longer welcome.

When this happens, Love dies a lingering death.

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NUDGINGS: a journey into the unknown

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