Starter

My name is Michael, and I want to learn how to make bread. 

I want to meet bread makers: humans with their hands in the dough of their families and cultures for many years who would be gracious enough to show me how (and why) they do what they do. 

I am a storyteller, and I want to share what I see and hear – and especially what I smell and taste and learn – with you. A humble, warm-from-the-oven offering we can all make sandwiches with.

I am a poet, and I want to observe, participate, distill and forge: to be delighted and undone and terrified at beauty. To be overcome with wonder and urging you to all of this yourself. 

I am a photographer and videographer, and I want to partner with other visual artists to help me share this exploration. 

I am a Christian following Jesus, which means, among other things, looking and listening for Jesus. Learning over the years to know his voice. To recognize this man, this God, who says he is the bread of our lives, in the midst of the mundane and the extraordinary days that are the gifts of our lives. To see, with surprise, Jesus, whose body we break and remember and have in our teeth each week in one of the most profound and beautiful mysteries of my life. 

If Jesus is alive, if the Christian faith is true and trustworthy, then I expect to find him at the tables of those that know him and those that don't: in the bread that is the staple in the kitchens of everyone, everywhere. In the Cuban loaves and French baguettes. In the black Russian rounds and the blessed focaccia. In the challah and the tortillas. The naan and the injera. In the breads I don't even know the names of yet.

For several years the idea of a book about learning how to make bread has been bubbling and fermenting and rising in me. And my early experiments with people and flour and water and yeast and salt have only made me more sure I want, I somehow need, to make this book with friends and people who may one day be friends. 

Last week I finally crossed a significant threshold: beginning to write the dream down. Using my words to begin outlining the vision, the hopes, an outline for how to make the thing come into being. 

This blog, this entry, is just another small step in that direction. One part journal of the journey, one part tangible reinforcement and advance against resistance, one part declaration of intent: a tiny recipe of a work long in process, here I take the starter in dusted, grateful hands, and finally begin to make the dough. 

I welcome you, whoever you are, into this story, whatever it will be. I may not know you, but this is for you. We may not end up in any place I expect to wend by word and wondering, but may we find our bread for today: something good in our bellies, good for our souls, and enough to share.