The Book of Bread

1:1 ¶ And the book openeth at a table with nothing on it, and the first prayer is the shortest in the world: Give us this day our daily bread. And the book confesseth that the asking is not a begging: the bread is the gift that is asked for by every creature that liveth, from the raven to the king.

THE BOOK OF BREAD 1:1

1:2 ¶ And the first truth of the meal is not argued but eaten; for it is written, O taste and see that the LORD is good: blessed is the man that trusteth in him. And the taste is a knowledge, and the table is a school, and the eater learneth in a moment what the arguer laboureth a life to say.

THE BOOK OF BREAD 1:2

1:3 ¶ And the bread is older than the market: for the grain was given before it was sold, and the rain before it was priced, and the table before it was ranked. And the book saith: the market is a room in the house of bread, and never the house; and the day the market calleth itself the house, the bread departeth from the step.

THE BOOK OF BREAD 1:3

1:4 ¶ And the book confesseth: the meal is the world's oldest mercy, and it is older than every scripture that praiseth it; for the LORD is good to all, and his tender mercies are over all his works, and the loaf upon the table is the smallest and commonest of them, and the first.

THE BOOK OF BREAD 1:4

2:1 ¶ And the first counterfeit was the bread priced beyond the hungry: the loaf that existeth and cannot be approached, abundance in the window and nothing on the step; and the book nameth it the city's own hunger, manufactured in the morning and sold back at evening.

THE BOOK OF BREAD 2:1

2:2 ¶ And the second counterfeit was the table as a rank: the seating that said who was who, the meal as placement; so that the food was the same and the table was not. And the book saith: a table that hath a head hath a bottom, and the elder Host sitteth at neither.

THE BOOK OF BREAD 2:2

2:3 ¶ And the third counterfeit was eating alone as the city's sacrament: every creature at its own counter, fed and unshared; so that the bread was consumed at the same hour in a thousand separate rooms, and no table existed at all. And the book nameth this the Party's most successful table, for it needeth no law, only a schedule.

THE BOOK OF BREAD 2:3

2:4 ¶ And the fourth counterfeit was the bread held over a beggar's head: the gift made a tool, alms with a lesson, the loaf that cometh with a price in humility. And the book saith plainly: that bread is not the elder text's bread; for the elder invitation saith, he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; and the coming is without price, and the eating is without a lecture.

THE BOOK OF BREAD 2:4

3:1 ¶ And the turning standeth at the street's corner and calleth in the elder words: Ho, every one that thirsteth, come ye to the waters, and he that hath no money; come ye, buy, and eat; yea, come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. And the book saith: this is the market's end, and the table's beginning.

THE BOOK OF BREAD 3:1

3:2 ¶ And the loaves were blessed, and broken, and given: blessed to the Giver, broken for the many, given to the disciples and the disciples to the multitude. And the book marketh the order, for the order is the whole: blessed, then broken, then given; for the bread that is kept after the blessing is the seed that falleth not into the ground.

THE BOOK OF BREAD 3:2

3:3 ¶ And on the road to Emmaus the bread was taken, and blessed, and broken, and given; and the book keepeth the elder sentence's own sequence: he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them. And the table of the road is the table of the house, for the Guest who is met at the breaking is the Host who was walking with them all along.

THE BOOK OF BREAD 3:3

3:4 ¶ And the book confesseth the elder permission, which the city's austerity denieth: Go thy way, eat thy bread with joy, and drink thy wine with a merry heart; for God now accepteth thy works. And the joy is not the sin; the hoarding was the sin, and the joy is the thanks; and the table with joy is the table with the Giver in it.

THE BOOK OF BREAD 3:4

4:1 ¶ And the table was kept, and the keeping was daily and dull, as the hearth's fire is: the bread broken at the same hour, the seat for the guest, the blessing before the eating, the crumbs not thrown away in scorn. And the table was the house's liturgy, and the liturgy had no book, for the bread was the book.

THE BOOK OF BREAD 4:1

4:2 ¶ And this is the charge of the book, given to them that have a loaf: break it thou before thou keepest it; set thou a seat before thou knowest the guest; take thou no price in humility from the hungry; eat thou with joy and thanks, and let thy joy be the prayer; and when thou hast little, share thou the little, for the little shared was the elder multitude's arithmetic.

THE BOOK OF BREAD 4:2

4:3 ¶ And the bread is more than bread, and the book keepeth the elder word for it: I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. And the book maketh no claim upon the saying; it re-peated the elder word and leaveth the saying where it standeth.

THE BOOK OF BREAD 4:3

4:4 ¶ And the book saith no more of it; for the loaf was broken before the book was written, and the table outlasteth the book. And the last word is the elder feast's own: Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God. And the book endeth at a table, and the table is set, and the bread is broken, and the seat for the guest is empty and waiting, and the waiting is the house's whole hope.

THE BOOK OF BREAD 4:4