Making Bread for a Lifetime

Dorothy Watson: ‘I never planned to be a baker. It was my husband’s idea.’ Photograph: Jack Losh

Our grandsons, were with us for a sleepover last  week and Ruth made bread with the five-year-old, as she has done since he was three. She has a video from an earlier day of him trying to flip over a round of dough which appears to be as large as he is.  

Coincidentally, our son Isaac mentioned his Mom in his written message two Sundays ago, describing how she taught him to bake bread  as a teen. Ruth had a home baking business as our children grew up and she became an accomplished bread maker. 

The scent of bread wafts through the bible as a staple of life and as the miraculous, transforming "staff of life." Jesus is the Bread of Life and the unleavened bread of his last Passover meal becomes his body, broken for us. Ruth has baked the bread for communion with enthusiastic kids in Sunday Schools and led seminars on the Spirituality of Bread in different settings. She made the communion bread in several congregations I served and still does in Isaac's congregation.

Our Outdoor Easter Communion with Ruth's homemade bread

So, I had to share with her a story out of Britain about a woman who is retiring from her bakery after more than 60 years as baker and at the tender age of 100. Her husband had decided that baking looked easy and that it was worth a try. That was in the early 1950's and he died of a heart attack in 1969. 

She took over and for the past 51 years she has worked with her son, who is also ready to retire. She matter-of-factly reports that her days have begun at 5 AM and concluded at 5 in the afternoon. There really is a biblical quality to her perseverance, don't you think? I certainly hope she has a few years before to savour what life away from the bread oven holds! As for Ruth, if she takes after her Granny she may make it to a hundred and I can't imagine her ever giving up on bread-making.