September came during the night. I've been going around opening windows. I looked out the door to check on the world and the weather said "Hello! I'll be your guide and companion today." (It was cool.)
     Meanwhile, in the refrigerator, a batch of bread dough was thawing. Bread is remarkable stuff. I'm still learning (after forty-five years) how to bake some. It isn't merely that I'm a lousy student, but that bread itself is magical, a living thing that must be treated as such.
     I've heard that bakers, real bakers, put their dough in refrigerators overnight. It helps... do something. The next day they take it out and it's completely different than my usual stuff. You can touch it without getting all stuck, like it was putty or something. And today that's exactly how my dough comes out. I didn't just refrigerate it though, I froze it because I made too much and couldn't bake it all at once (homemade bread gets stale really fast.) So I put half the dough in deep freeze and figured "in a week or so..." I'd pull it out and save myself the trouble of making a new batch. Well, if you've ever made bread before you might know the magic combination of homemade bread and families. It just doesn't hang around long. So after a day I had to pull out the reserves and let it thaw, first on the counter, then in the refrigerator.
     Bringing us to this morning. Bread, being living stuff, sets its own agenda. Once begun it takes over and it doesn't matter if it's Thursday morning and you have to go to work in a few hours. You'd better be prepared to get out of bed and take care of the bread. Which is what I'm doing now. Or rather, the bread is on the stove rising, two beautiful loaves that look so real you could almost believe it. If I have succeeded learning an approach that works and results in improved loaves, then I'm almost halfway to understanding how to make bread!

     Anybody know how to get that shiny, crunchy crust? Anybody...?

     Not too long ago, someone told me that before yeast, wheat was practically indigestible. It is a hard seed, I know that from experience. I also know that when Jesus was walking through the field on a Sabbath he was breaking off heads of wheat and eating them, just like that. Either he was really hungry, or he was like so tough... I sort of like thinking of Jesus as a tough guy, once in awhile. Anyway, somehow, somebody figured out that if wheat got wet and yeast got into the bowl, it would get all soft. Then if it got near a fire it would bake up and you could eat it and, hey! This could be pretty good. But when I try to imagine the yeasty, sticky, gooey mess they must have been working with, and why would anybody throw it on a fire? I mean, if you lay in bed at three in the morning while the house is quiet and try to imagine somebody discovering how to bake up the first batch of bread--those must have been some really tough folks, in the old days.
     But that's probably how it happened. Somebody discovered that the same fire that cooked your meat could bake bread out of that messy bowl of wheat you were trying to soften and left too long (they must have done some grinding, somewhere in the middle of all that process) and then, there was bread. And it's been with us for so long, been part of the process of us growing and maybe even evolving that one might say that the basic building blocks of wheat and yeast are part of who we are. We have become what we ate.

     So... "unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains but a grain. But if it dies, it sprouts up and bears fruit, one hundred or sixty or forty-fold." And from that fruit God harvests a whole sack of wheat that he can grind, sift, soak, mash, mix up with grace to make it rise--all at once and everywhere at the same time. How it all happens is beyond understanding. But we know it takes time, and it's God's work. Jesus gave us bread that came down from Heaven, so that we can lay our hands on it and eat it and live forever.
     When I make bread, nobody in my house asks me how it all happens. Interesting story... but pass the plates and let's eat! WE have been given bread to feed the world and a share in the work of its making. Who's ready to roll up their sleeves and get busy? It may be hard, complicated work, but when that bread starts coming out of the oven... the whole House rejoices!

     Now, if you'll excuse me, it's time to go start warming the oven...