Keeping the Feast: Metaphors for the Meal

(Paperback)

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Description

Accessible spiritual narratives of the meal as Communion, plus recipes, by a well-known blogger, widely-traveled musician, and retreat leader "This is a book about what nourishes us: food, faith, family, and friends, and how all of those elements are essential ingredients of Communion-in fact how every meal of our lives holds an invitation to the Sacred Meal. As I say in the opening chapter, 'What the Gospel writers don't seem to scrimp on are stories of Jesus eating, or at least stories about Jesus and food. He eats, feeds, talks about food, and even calls himself the Bread of Life, right down to that last night in the Upper Room...where they sat around the table and he wrapped it all up with a meal-The Meal-as his ultimate metaphor.'"
-from the Introduction

Reviews

"Michael Pollan, Wendell Berry and Alice Waters, among many others, show us how central food is to our identity and culture, but it took Keeping the Feast by Milton Brasher-Cunningham to remind me what food is to the life, ministry, and even the enduring presence of Christ in the world."
M. Morford, Books

Food, the church, and great writing. Can one ask for anything more Milton has written my favorite book of this past year.

Bill Kinnon, writer, blogger, television director

If youre lucky enough to know Milton Brasher-Cunningham, youll know what a miracle he concocts at his kitchen table. This book is the literary version of such a lovely banquet. It is full of grace, generosity, and thoughtfulness about the spirituality of eating. More than thatKeeping the Feast grants us access to the deep memory of what it is to be human community, made in the image of God, one meal at a time. This is a deeply satisfying recipe.

Gareth Higgins, writer, peace activist, and Wild Goose Festival executive director

As Milton Brasher-Cunningham knows, and tells beautifully in this book, practice isnt a solitary business. You cant have a restaurant, or a church, alone. You need to stand the heat with other people, listen to other people weep, let other people pop fresh strawberries or little pieces of communion bread into your mouth. And doing this takes practice, too. Sometimes you need to spatter your saut guy with hot grease and step on your organists toes and say sorry; sometimes you need to let the dishwasher teach you to poach fish or the teenagers teach you to do scriptural exegesis and say thank you. Always you need to cook for people you dont know, pray for people you dont like, and eat with whoever shows up."

Sara Miles, author of Take This Bread from the Foreword

Author Bio

Milton Brasher-Cunningham is a writer, editor, chef, teacher, United Church of Christ minister, gardener, musician, husband, and keeper of Schnauzers, who lives with his wife, Ginger (also a United Church of Christ minister), in Guilford, Connecticut. He blogs at www.donteatalone.com, sharing reflections and recipes. Sara Miles is a reporter and editor who lives in San Francisco. She is a contributing writer for Outmagazine, and a freelance contributing editor to magazines including "The Nation", "The New Yorker", and "Wired".