Bakerwoman God

Bakerwoman God, I am your living bread, Strong, brown Bakerwoman God.
I am your low, soft, and being-shaped loaf I am your rising bread, well kneaded
by some divine and knotty pair of knuckles,by your warm earth hands, I am bread well-kneaded.
Put me in fire, Bakerwoman God, put my in your own bright fire.
I am warm, warm as you from fire.
I am white and gold, soft and hard, brown and round.
I am so warm from fire.
Break me, Bakerwoman God.
I am broken under your caring Word.
Drop me in your special juice in pieces.
Drop me in your blood.
Drunken me in the great red flood.
Self-giving chalice swallow me.
My skin shines in the divine wine.
My face is cup-covered and I drown.
I fall up in a red pool in a gold world where your warm sunskin hand is there to catch and hold me.
Bakerwoman God, remake.

Alla Renee Bozarth wrote this poem and I was drawn to it today in a lovely book of Earth Prayers. I especially like the words spoken as if I were a loaf of bread being formed and baked by our God. He forms us, puts us in fire, breaks us, and ultimately sustains us. I love the imagery this creates of truth. I think that it especially resonates with me now because at this time in my life of exporation, experiencing new things and different ideas of life I feel like I am being shaped and formed. I am being put into fire. As much as we all want to avoid the fire, avoid the pain of being challenged, we need this to find our true self. I really do believe I am in the place I am right now as a divine appointment, as an opportunity to be fired and broken so that I can fall up in the hands of the Almighty God that wish to catch and hold me.

Hebrews 12:28 Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe, for our "God is a consuming fire."