{"id":739,"date":"2025-04-01T21:13:28","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T20:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/?p=739"},"modified":"2025-04-01T21:13:28","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T20:13:28","slug":"our-daily-bread","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rebelrebel.org.uk\/?p=739","title":{"rendered":"Our Daily Bread"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Reflection #90 (13th October 2024 at Essex Church \/ Kensington Unitarians)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once a year \u2013 at least<\/i> once a year \u2013 it\u2019s important to stop and give thanks for the harvest \u2013 for everything it takes to get food onto our plates \u2013 for the earth, the weather, the pollinators, and many, many human hands \u2013 to till the soil, plant the seeds, to weed and water and prune, tend to livestock, to pick and pull up, package and process, transport the goods to market, and stock the supermarket shelves and ring up your basket on the till or at the market stall. It was hinted at in Malcolm Guite\u2019s poem which we heard earlier for our meditation: yes, let\u2019s thank God for the harvest, but let\u2019s also remember that God didn\u2019t just magic it onto our plate. A huge chain of people served as God\u2019s hands along the way, bringing the harvest to our table, feeding us. Meeting our needs for sustenance, nourishment, and the sheer pleasure of eating well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Harvest festivals take different forms around the world, and across the ages, but the need to give thanks for our food seems like an almost universal human tradition, and for good reason. To state the obvious: food is one of our most basic needs. And while many of us (in wealthier nations) seem to have kind-of taken it for granted that the shelves will always be fully laden, the security of our food supply here in the UK seems increasingly uncertain these days for a variety of reasons: climate change, geopolitical instability, the post-Brexit shortage of skilled workers, and ongoing disruption to supply chains, all these factors play their part. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

You may have read in the news this week that this year\u2019s harvest in England has been the second worst on record, largely because of very wet weather, after a few years of drought. For those of us who are city-dwellers, somewhat out of touch and alienated from the realities of agricultural production, it can be easy to forget how dependent we are on the elements, and how these forces of nature can still have a significant impact on our ability to feed ourselves. The Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit (ECIU) reported that this year England\u2019s wheat haul is estimated to be 10m tonnes, or 21%, down on 2023; DEFRA reported that winter barley was 26% down, and the oilseed rape harvest was down by 32%. Tom Lancaster, a land, food and farming analyst at the ECIU, was quoted in the Guardian as saying: \u2018This year\u2019s harvest was a shocker, and climate change is to blame. While shoppers have been partly insulated by imports picking up some of the slack, Britain\u2019s farmers have borne the brunt of the second worst harvest on record. It is clear that climate change is the biggest threat to UK food security.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Which brings us to the famous words of prayer: \u2018give us this day our daily bread.\u2019 For those of us who are comfortably off, who take it for granted that we can pop to Asda, or Sainsbury\u2019s, or even Waitrose if we\u2019re feeling flush, it can be easy to reel off this line without much thought. But as we\u2019re increasingly aware, we can\u2019t take food security for granted, and our daily bread is not guaranteed. Indeed for many people \u2013 too many people \u2013 \u2018give us this day our daily bread\u2019 is a real plea from the heart (and the stomach). For many in our midst this is a real, live, question: Where is tomorrow\u2019s food going to come from? People\u2019s lives are precarious and it is a day to day scrabble for some of us to get such basic needs met. That\u2019s why I wanted to share that image from \u2018Sleeping with Bread\u2019 \u2013 an image I find so powerful \u2013 these orphans of war holding a meagre ration of bread in their hands \u2013 for the comfort of knowing at least they will have something to eat tomorrow. But such food insecurity is a reality for so many people still. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even in times when the harvest is good, supply chains are functioning well, and our supermarkets are well-stocked, we know that so many people don\u2019t have the money to buy their wares. The number of people using food banks in the UK is still increasing, and this year approximately 3.12 million emergency food parcels were distributed by the Trussell Trust, which amounts to a 94% increase in food bank use over the last five years. We\u2019re probably all too familiar with such statistics now but it\u2019s important that we don\u2019t become inured to them, or desensitised to this disgraceful state of affairs, such hardship which has largely come about due to political choices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Joy-Elizabeth Lawrence wrote, in the reading we heard from David earlier, it\u2019s important to note that we pray \u2018give US this day OUR daily bread\u2019. That is, it\u2019s \u2018us and our\u2019 not \u2018me and my\u2019 we\u2019re praying for \u2013 our global family \u2013 part of the point of this prayer is to keep everybody\u2019s needs in mind that and to remember not everybody is equally fortunate \u2013 we know that plenty of people\u2019s access to daily bread is uncertain at best. So we\u2019re praying for everyone\u2019s need to be met, our own and our neighbours\u2019, close to home and round the world. And perhaps the prayer might inspire us to do something practical or political to help address this poverty and hunger. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We prayed Jacob Trapp\u2019s version of the Lord\u2019s Prayer earlier but there are so many interesting renderings and retranslations that bring out different interpretations. One version of the line I like comes from Neil Douglas-Klotz\u2019s \u2018Prayers of the Cosmos\u2019 \u2013 an intriguing project which takes both the Lord\u2019s Prayer and the Beatitudes and considers how they might have originally been heard in the Aramaic language which Jesus would have spoken \u2013 and then translates freely, poetically, in a way that brings out layers of meaning which the familiar translations perhaps lack. In this project the line is rendered slightly differently as \u2018grant us what we need each day in bread and insight\u2019. This opens up interpretation of the line as being about something more than just literal food.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now, it’s crucial that we don\u2019t entirely jettison the literal meaning of the line \u2013 that we don\u2019t excessively spiritualise its meaning \u2013 people need to eat \u2013 that\u2019s still the primary message (one which would have been even more of a front-and-centre reality for most of Jesus\u2019s listeners). But food is not our only need \u2013 and to paraphrase Jesus again \u2013 \u2018we do not live by bread alone\u2019. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It makes me think of Maslow\u2019s hierarchy of needs. What I\u2019m about to say is a simplification of his model, and indeed I\u2019m also going to gloss over much critique and variations on the model that have been proposed in recent years, but to put it in simple terms: Abraham Maslow\u2019s famous notion was that there\u2019s a hierarchy of needs \u2013 basic physiological needs (for food, water, air, warmth, shelter, and rest) plus needs for safety, stability, and security \u2013 these basic needs must be met first, these are the priority, and meeting these needs is the bare minimum required simply in order for us to survive. Once these basic needs are met we can progress to consider psychological needs (for friendship, intimacy, love, acceptance, and belonging), and esteem needs (for self-respect and the respect of others, based on competence, confidence, and achievement), and taking it further still Maslow speaks of the human need for self-actualization and transcendence. I think these days the consensus might be that it\u2019s not like an escalator or a video game, where you tick off each level, and progress to the next level throughout the course of life! Indeed when we\u2019re temporarily short of some of the \u2018basic\u2019 needs it may be that some of the so-called \u2018higher\u2019 needs \u2013 psychological and spiritual goods \u2013 help us to cope, to hang on, through times of struggle, suffering, and material deprivation. But at the same time I don\u2019t think it\u2019s too controversial to say that it\u2019s harder to focus on self-actualization and transcendence when you\u2019re hungry, cold, or exhausted. So for all its flaws it\u2019s still a useful way to think about needs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

And for me there are echoes of Martin Luther\u2019s long list of needs which we heard earlier and which began: \u2018Daily bread is everything that belongs to the support and wants of the body\u2026\u2019 and then goes on to mention not just basic needs like food, drink, housing and money as part of \u2018our daily bread\u2019 but also things like good friends, faithful neighbours, good government, and peace. Joy-Elizabeth Lawrence summarises: \u2018there is much on this list that we truly need and which we just can\u2019t provide for ourselves. So as we pray \u201cGive us this day our daily bread,\u201d we\u2019re interceding for the true daily needs of ourselves and our neighbours: clean air, water, food, shelter, sleep, love (relationships), and purpose. And we entrust all these needs to God.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I hinted at the start of this mini-reflection \u2013 there\u2019s something to be said for making harvest thanksgiving (in the broadest sense) a practice that we participate in more than once a year \u2013 each month, or each week, or each day, we might prayerfully pause to take stock and give thanks for the many ways in which our needs have been met. And more than that, to reflect on the part we might have played in meeting others\u2019 needs, the impact we might have had on those whose lives we touch, in the interdependent network of mutuality of which we are part. In the book, \u2018Sleeping with Bread\u2019, the authors advocate the practice of praying the Examen at the end of each day in this spirit \u2013 asking \u2018for what am I most grateful?\u2019 and \u2018for what am I least grateful?\u2019 \u2013 it\u2019s a gratitude practice, but it\u2019s more than that, as it requires us to pay attention to our life as it unfolds, noticing and taking in the good, noticing and facing up to the bad. Those of you who are regulars at Heart and Soul will know we do something similar each week in our Naming and Knowing prayers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So (if this isn\u2019t already your habit), I encourage you to experiment with this practice tonight, and in the days to come. Take a quiet moment on your way to bed to look back and reflect on its harvest. Ask yourself: what were you granted in bread and insight today? And give thanks for all that\u2019s good. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reflection by Jane Blackall<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n