I’ll take what you have given, Lord,
though all things pass away,
and make what adds to no one’s hoard:
This bread is for today.
All flesh will come to what it must;
to dust we shall return.
For all creation comes to dust—
that’s all we ever were.
Let it be flour, then, reaped and ground,
that all things shall be bread.
Then dwell in it—in it be found,
as life where all was dead.
O Lord, in what you made, you lurk,
and will all things remake.
So may it be—but this my work
is here to knead and bake
no sacred gift on the altar laid
but ordinary food—
yet fashioned from the works you made,
and you had called them good.
Then may this bread be good for us,
our bodies and our souls,
and when we go, Lord, knead our dust:
Remake us to be whole.
Woman baking bread (c. 2200 BC); Louvre, Photo By Rama, CC BY-SA 3.0 fr, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69938567
Kate Bluett 