Sara Miles

I just loved this book. Sara Miles describes an approach to church that is very refreshing. Connecting food and eating with he Gospel is so much what Jesus Himself seemed to be about. He ate with the roughest elements of his society, no one was excluded from His table and the food was free. I have always felt that the church needs to be much more inclusive. Where a lesbian, worldly, atheist can find God, we need more places like that, more churches that make such people feel welcome.

This is the story of unlikely conversion: A radical lesbian activist, who spend much of her youth involved in people's uprisings in Mexico & Central America, one day walks into a church, receives communion, and is transformed. She becomes filled with the idea of "sharing the body," which for her becomes a command to feed the people. Which leads her to setting up a weekly food bank in the church, and then to helping others in the city start new food banks as well, challenging her show more congregation, those in her neighborhood, and even those who visit the food bank to expand their ideas of community, service, and comfort.

What I appreciated most about this book was the author's meditations on what it means to "be the body of Christ," and sharing in that call with those whose religious beliefs differed significantly from hers. (And vice versa!) It's a thought that I've been mulling over all summer, and it's helping me be less reticent expressing my beliefs around those with more conservative views (Pretty much everyone.) show less

City of God narrates the events of an Ash Wednesday in 2012 when the author and her friends left their church and placed ashes on the foreheads of strangers they met in the Mission neighborhood of San Francisco. It explores the profound implications of touching strangers with a reminder of common mortality. A beautifully written personal narrative, rich in complex, real-life characters that is wild, funny, joyful, raucous and reverent.

I was handed this book and asked to ponder it, and it is a very good book for that purpose. Sara Miles was raised an atheist and grew to be a lesbian, a mother, and a globe-trotting journalist through war-torn countries. Her conversion to Christianity, and her fervent activism, still comes across as a genuine surprise to her, something she works to understand through her writing.

What I found fascinating was her deep exploration of what is meant by communion. That it is not something intended show more for a select few, after baptism (as I was taught), but something for everyone to celebrate in, no matter their faith, because we all share in humanity together and there is holiness in that.

I did feel like the book was too long, but then, there was a definite circulatory to her tale. She began by describing her early adulthood work in the restaurant business and the horrors of working with the public, and comes back around to working with the public in its most, well, dramatic and hurting form, really, as the poor and suffering line up to get food from the church pantry that she runs. She doesn't shy away expressing the racial biases she developed, as certain groups acted certain ways (from my experience working with the public, such sentiments are very realistic, sadly) but she is very open about the fact that she is a work in progress and that she is trying to do better. Note that the book was published in 2006 and some of the language is now outdated.

In all, an interesting book that seeks to provide food for thought (pun very much intended) and succeeds in that. show less