What do you think?
Rate this book
Jesus Freak: Feeding Healing Raising the Dead
"I came late to Christianity," writes Sara Miles, "knocked upside down by a mid-life conversion centered around eating a literal chunk of bread. I hadn't decided to profess an article of doctrine, but discovered a force blowing uncontrollably through the world."
In this new book, Sara Miles tells what happened when she decided to follow the flesh and blood Jesus by doing something real. For everyone afraid to feed hungry strangers, love the unlovable, or go to dark places to bless and heal, she offers hope. She holds out the promise of a God who gave a bunch of housewives and fishermen authority to forgive sins and raise the dead, and who continues to call us to action. And she tells, in vivid, heartbreakingly honest stories, how the ordinary people around her are transformed by taking up God's work in the world.
Sara Miles offers a fresh, fully embodied faith that sweeps away the anxious formulas of religion to reveal the scandalous power of eating with sinners, embracing the unclean, and loving the wrong people. Jesus Freak: Feeding Healing Raising the Dead is her inspiring book for undomesticated Christians who still believe, as she writes, "that Jesus has given us the power to be Jesus."
171 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2009
21 people are currently reading
1141 people want to read
About the author
Sara Miles
7 books73 followersSara Miles is the founder and director of The Food Pantry, and serves as Director of Ministry at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco. Her other books include "Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion," and her writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, the New Yorker, Salon, and on National Public Radio.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 107 reviews
December 28, 2010
I loved Sara Miles's first book Take This Bread, and I loved this one, too. Let me just say that anytime I read about a person who is gay being Christian, I feel incredibly humbled. For all the good news and power that the Christian faith holds for all people, it is gay people--more than any other group--who have the right to hate Christians and Christianity. I find it remarkable when I read about someone like Bishop Eugene Robinson in New Hampshire, for example, who has put up with incredible waves of hatred and fear simply for telling the world that he is a gay man. Likewise, Sara Miles understands what the message of Jesus is better than damn near anyone I've ever heard of (with the possible exceptions of Shayne Clairborne and Dorothy Day)...and she would be unwelcome in many, many American churches. The hatred of gay people in our society in general is sick;that the roots of this vitriol began in the Bible is sicker still. I cannot blame any gay person who finds Christianity repulsive; it is all the more amazing and inspirational to me when I read about the incredible witness of someone like Sara Miles and her remarkable church.
In this second book, the author writes more about her experiences at her church in San Francisco, and especially about her participation in a free food bank that she founded. Much of what she writes about would be considered heresy in any denomination: lay people, she says, can do the things that only priests or ministers are allowed to do because that's how Jesus wants it. Communion should be open to all. No judging anyone. And on and on. Writing from my suburban home, educated and healthy with a good job, health insurance, and a bank account, I am not sure how 'comfortable' I would be hanging out with the people Sara Miles hangs out with, but that's the point: it's not supposed to be comfortable!
Once again, that author has given me much to think about. The next time I am in San Francisco, I want to visit this church and meet her in person, just to tell her thank you for challenging me so much. She truly is a Jesus Freak in the best sense of the term!
In this second book, the author writes more about her experiences at her church in San Francisco, and especially about her participation in a free food bank that she founded. Much of what she writes about would be considered heresy in any denomination: lay people, she says, can do the things that only priests or ministers are allowed to do because that's how Jesus wants it. Communion should be open to all. No judging anyone. And on and on. Writing from my suburban home, educated and healthy with a good job, health insurance, and a bank account, I am not sure how 'comfortable' I would be hanging out with the people Sara Miles hangs out with, but that's the point: it's not supposed to be comfortable!
Once again, that author has given me much to think about. The next time I am in San Francisco, I want to visit this church and meet her in person, just to tell her thank you for challenging me so much. She truly is a Jesus Freak in the best sense of the term!
August 21, 2010
I am very impressed, again, with Sara Miles and her faith and action. And her theology is compelling because it is reflection on action (praxis), not just thought separated from action.
She closes the Introduction with these words: “All it takes to be a Jesus freak is to follow him” (p. xx).
In the section on healing, she contends that “Jesus specifically heals people even when they aren’t cured. He doesn't stop suffering, but promises to be with us in suffering” (p. 73).
With the story of the man born blind in the background, Sara writes, “Sickness, war, falling in love, going to the grocery story: everything happens so that God’s works might be revealed. But it’s up to us to pray—to keep our eyes open—if we’re going to discover what that means.
“Prayer can’t cure. All prayer can do is heal, because healing comes embedded in relationship, and prayer is one of the deepest forms of relationship—with God and with other people. And through relationship, there can be healing in the absence of cure” (p. 85).
In the section on raising the dead, Sara quips, “We’d rather have a dead religion than a living God” (p. 137).
She ends her book by declaring, “Jesus is real, and so, praise God, are we. Everything single thing the resurrected Jesus does on earth he does through our bodies. You’re fed, you’re healed, you’re forgiven, you’re pronounced clean. You are loved, and you’re raised from the dead.
“Go and do likewise” (p. 166).
She closes the Introduction with these words: “All it takes to be a Jesus freak is to follow him” (p. xx).
In the section on healing, she contends that “Jesus specifically heals people even when they aren’t cured. He doesn't stop suffering, but promises to be with us in suffering” (p. 73).
With the story of the man born blind in the background, Sara writes, “Sickness, war, falling in love, going to the grocery story: everything happens so that God’s works might be revealed. But it’s up to us to pray—to keep our eyes open—if we’re going to discover what that means.
“Prayer can’t cure. All prayer can do is heal, because healing comes embedded in relationship, and prayer is one of the deepest forms of relationship—with God and with other people. And through relationship, there can be healing in the absence of cure” (p. 85).
In the section on raising the dead, Sara quips, “We’d rather have a dead religion than a living God” (p. 137).
She ends her book by declaring, “Jesus is real, and so, praise God, are we. Everything single thing the resurrected Jesus does on earth he does through our bodies. You’re fed, you’re healed, you’re forgiven, you’re pronounced clean. You are loved, and you’re raised from the dead.
“Go and do likewise” (p. 166).
January 25, 2012
It Tom Waits were a Christian (and I don't have any real idea whether or not he is), this is the kind of book he'd write. Fiercely committed to taking Jesus--who she refers to through most of this powerful memoir "The Boyfriend"--seriously, Sara Miles presents a vision of committed Christian action organized around the concrete acts of feeding, healing, forgiving and resurrecting. As described in her first book, Take This Bread, the center of her activity is the food pantry at St. Gregory's Episcopal Church, which feeds nearly a thousand people each week in the blasted Portrero Hill neighborhood of San Francisco. Part of the pleasure of this book is the obvious love (tempered with more than occasional exasperation) she shows for the people who pass through St. Gregory's. There's not a touch of liberal condescension in the way the program operates; it's fully participatory with many of those who rely on the pantry serving as volunteers themselves. There are dozens of deft portraits tying the book together into a portrait of a living church that doesn't require any sort of physical, economic, political agreement. For her, the notion of the church as the Body of Christ isn't an abstraction. Although she insists that she's not taking any of the calls she acts on in metaphorical terms, I did find her discussion of "resurrection" well, metaphorical. Didn't harm the book for me, but it does point the key issue which divides Christians and non-Christian dedicated to similar ways of being in the world. Sara Miles is the best possible argument for Christianity. Wish more people inside the institutional churches took her approach seriously.
June 5, 2021
Many years ago I went on a family trip to NYC, and one of the embarrassing items I insisted on checking off was landing a seating at Mission Street Food in the Lower East Side. This was the same month Danny Bowien picked up a James Beard award, and the hype at the time was very high. It was Anthony Bourdain who had put me onto Bowien and so I advocated for setting aside one of our dinner meals to eat at this place. We ended up standing outside the restaurant for two hours in a nebulous cloud of cigarette smoke listening to deadpan voices talking about writing articles for Vice, Williamsburg gossip au courant, and their lives as suffering artists. And this two-hour wait was just to put our name on a physical list, after which we had to wait for another hour (possibly more I don’t remember) to get a table to eat sichuan catfish and kung pao pastrami, hahaha. If I get sent to a gulag one day it will be because I let this story see the light of day. Worst of all the food was so excessively hot and spicy that all our heads were throbbing afterwards, our faces flush with redness, all of us struggling to breathe. My dad afterwards cursed Anthony Bourdain and said he would never trust him again for wasting an entire evening to eat unbearably spicy Sichuan food cooked by some Korean hipster hotshot. Thankfully, that phase of my life is over. I have more or less disconnected from that ceaseless world of sensationalist food journalism, in part because I have (out of necessity) subjected myself to the despicable capitalist discipline of saving money so that I don’t starve in my late adulthood.
All this to say I did not know some of the fascinating backstory of Mission Street Food’s early iteration in San Francisco. I watched Bourdain hanging out with Bowien in SF, renting out space in a Chinese restaurant once a week, but do not recall hearing about Bowien’s culinary partner in crime Anthony Myint, who Miles was friends with and talks about at length in this book. It was really fascinating to hear her stories of working with Myint for one of his off-the-wall events to raise money at the food pantry she volunteered at. Miles describes the event in this way:
“We planned to feature food gathered or grown in the city: foraged wild radish and fennel from a park, lemons from backyards, local walnuts, herbs, and vegetables from neighbors’ gardens. Paul and I were exhausted with planning by the time we wrote the final menu: pork braised in milk, a no-meat rice and beans to appease the vegetarians, spicy mustard greens, hibiscus-beet ice cream, and our wild weed tart. All the prices were under $10, except for the item we printed at the bottom of the menu. ‘‘Bread & Wine: Free,’’ it read. ‘‘Eat with Jesus at midnight. All welcome, no restrictions, nothing for sale.’’
… ‘‘Come, all who are hungry,’’ I said, repeating the prophecy of Isaiah that we used for a post-communion prayer. ‘‘Come and eat, without money, without price. The Lord has made a promise to love you faithfully forever: you shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace.’’”
A lot of this book are Miles’ adventures with her friend and gay Episcopal priest Paul Fromberg, especially in their community of St Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in the Mission District of San Francisco and the food pantry they operated out of the church. I love SF as a city and reading this brought back fond memories of the handful of days I’ve spent in that city. I think people have had varying experiences in SF but I had the same warm communal feeling in the city that Miles describes, a rich tapestry of human life mingling and sharing the beautiful bounty of food, love, and mutual aid. One of my favourite parts of this book is Miles (a lesbian Episcopalian) continually referring to Jesus as her boyfriend throughout the book. It doesn’t seem like the sort of irreverent metaphor that I would appreciate, but it surprisingly has legs. Considering how the church is Christ’s bride, I found the forwardness of Miles’ take rather refreshing, especially as that biblical imagery has been so long used to perpetuate absolute heteronormativity among ‘respectable’ Christian communities. There’s a lot of this sort of stuff, and sometimes Miles does step over lines or wanders into semi-sensationalist territory that betrays her bohemian tendencies. But consistently the book was tremendously fun to read. I will finish with one of my favourite passages from the book where Miles really takes the time to elaborate on the radical nature of Jesus’ life:
“Back in the early 1970s, when I was Gabriel’s age, the country had been on fire: the cities were burning; the streets were full of marchers and National Guardsmen; the country was convulsed by assassins, drugs, and riots. Everything was turning over: women left their husbands, young men defied the law and the elders, inmates took control of prisons, poor people refused to obey the cops, parents and children were at each other’s throats. I was young and fiercely antiauthoritarian and had no sense at all. My favorite chant at the demonstrations—not today’s stage-managed events, but the ones that wound up with tear gas and running with your heart in your mouth—was Two, four, six, eight; smash the family, church, and state.
I had absolutely no idea, back then, that this was Jesus’ chant. That it would turn out to be such a fundamentally Christian thing to say. Smash the family—smash the relations of power between men and women, young and old. Smash the church—break the relations of power between an official priesthood and the people of God, between manipulators of mystery and its helpless objects. Smash the state—break the relations of power that owe their existence to official violence, destroy the armies of the empire, break the iron bars of the prison house.
I could just hear Jesus chanting this. Or, to quote another saying I grew up with: ‘‘Burn, baby, burn.’’ And how I wish, says Jesus, that the fire were already kindled.
… And yet ‘‘profamily’’ Christians thought Jesus was on their side. In his name, they wanted to ‘‘focus on the family’’ or ‘‘protect marriage’’ or restore ‘‘family values.’’ In his name, they wanted to make sure that the wrong people didn’t get married or have kids. In the cold postmodern capitalist world, family to most people seemed like the only safe place. It was home, love, a minivan full of blond children. And it was threatened by people like me—the mere existence of my wife and child destabilized others’ sense of belonging. It was threatened by Laura and Gloria—a couple with mixed citizenship and no legal right to live together, claiming that they were a family, too.
But Jesus was not talking about the cozy, affective private household idolized by contemporary Christians. In Jesus’ time, family ruled as much as the temple did, or the soldiers of the imperial army. Your very name, your identity, was determined by whose son or daughter you were. Your role in life was completely circumscribed by your position in the family. Your freedom as an individual was negligible inside the family and in the network of families that made up tribes and nations. The father ruled the mother, the mother-in-law ruled the daughter-in-law, the elder brother ruled the younger brother.
And central to the construction of family, of course, was who was outside it. Families existed—in fact, just as they do now—to define outsiders. Widows and orphans, illegitimate children—these people had no power, no authority, no place. They were not full humans, because they did not belong to a family.
Jesus just burns that sucker down.
It doesn’t matter anymore, he says, that you’re related by blood, by circumcision, by name, by property, by geographic boundaries. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Jew or a Greek, slave or free, male or female. We’re all children of God: born naked, with no vestiges of family position or citizenship that we can carry into the kingdom. We are liberated from human rules about who belongs and who has power and who deserves to be part of a family.”
All this to say I did not know some of the fascinating backstory of Mission Street Food’s early iteration in San Francisco. I watched Bourdain hanging out with Bowien in SF, renting out space in a Chinese restaurant once a week, but do not recall hearing about Bowien’s culinary partner in crime Anthony Myint, who Miles was friends with and talks about at length in this book. It was really fascinating to hear her stories of working with Myint for one of his off-the-wall events to raise money at the food pantry she volunteered at. Miles describes the event in this way:
“We planned to feature food gathered or grown in the city: foraged wild radish and fennel from a park, lemons from backyards, local walnuts, herbs, and vegetables from neighbors’ gardens. Paul and I were exhausted with planning by the time we wrote the final menu: pork braised in milk, a no-meat rice and beans to appease the vegetarians, spicy mustard greens, hibiscus-beet ice cream, and our wild weed tart. All the prices were under $10, except for the item we printed at the bottom of the menu. ‘‘Bread & Wine: Free,’’ it read. ‘‘Eat with Jesus at midnight. All welcome, no restrictions, nothing for sale.’’
… ‘‘Come, all who are hungry,’’ I said, repeating the prophecy of Isaiah that we used for a post-communion prayer. ‘‘Come and eat, without money, without price. The Lord has made a promise to love you faithfully forever: you shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace.’’”
A lot of this book are Miles’ adventures with her friend and gay Episcopal priest Paul Fromberg, especially in their community of St Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in the Mission District of San Francisco and the food pantry they operated out of the church. I love SF as a city and reading this brought back fond memories of the handful of days I’ve spent in that city. I think people have had varying experiences in SF but I had the same warm communal feeling in the city that Miles describes, a rich tapestry of human life mingling and sharing the beautiful bounty of food, love, and mutual aid. One of my favourite parts of this book is Miles (a lesbian Episcopalian) continually referring to Jesus as her boyfriend throughout the book. It doesn’t seem like the sort of irreverent metaphor that I would appreciate, but it surprisingly has legs. Considering how the church is Christ’s bride, I found the forwardness of Miles’ take rather refreshing, especially as that biblical imagery has been so long used to perpetuate absolute heteronormativity among ‘respectable’ Christian communities. There’s a lot of this sort of stuff, and sometimes Miles does step over lines or wanders into semi-sensationalist territory that betrays her bohemian tendencies. But consistently the book was tremendously fun to read. I will finish with one of my favourite passages from the book where Miles really takes the time to elaborate on the radical nature of Jesus’ life:
“Back in the early 1970s, when I was Gabriel’s age, the country had been on fire: the cities were burning; the streets were full of marchers and National Guardsmen; the country was convulsed by assassins, drugs, and riots. Everything was turning over: women left their husbands, young men defied the law and the elders, inmates took control of prisons, poor people refused to obey the cops, parents and children were at each other’s throats. I was young and fiercely antiauthoritarian and had no sense at all. My favorite chant at the demonstrations—not today’s stage-managed events, but the ones that wound up with tear gas and running with your heart in your mouth—was Two, four, six, eight; smash the family, church, and state.
I had absolutely no idea, back then, that this was Jesus’ chant. That it would turn out to be such a fundamentally Christian thing to say. Smash the family—smash the relations of power between men and women, young and old. Smash the church—break the relations of power between an official priesthood and the people of God, between manipulators of mystery and its helpless objects. Smash the state—break the relations of power that owe their existence to official violence, destroy the armies of the empire, break the iron bars of the prison house.
I could just hear Jesus chanting this. Or, to quote another saying I grew up with: ‘‘Burn, baby, burn.’’ And how I wish, says Jesus, that the fire were already kindled.
… And yet ‘‘profamily’’ Christians thought Jesus was on their side. In his name, they wanted to ‘‘focus on the family’’ or ‘‘protect marriage’’ or restore ‘‘family values.’’ In his name, they wanted to make sure that the wrong people didn’t get married or have kids. In the cold postmodern capitalist world, family to most people seemed like the only safe place. It was home, love, a minivan full of blond children. And it was threatened by people like me—the mere existence of my wife and child destabilized others’ sense of belonging. It was threatened by Laura and Gloria—a couple with mixed citizenship and no legal right to live together, claiming that they were a family, too.
But Jesus was not talking about the cozy, affective private household idolized by contemporary Christians. In Jesus’ time, family ruled as much as the temple did, or the soldiers of the imperial army. Your very name, your identity, was determined by whose son or daughter you were. Your role in life was completely circumscribed by your position in the family. Your freedom as an individual was negligible inside the family and in the network of families that made up tribes and nations. The father ruled the mother, the mother-in-law ruled the daughter-in-law, the elder brother ruled the younger brother.
And central to the construction of family, of course, was who was outside it. Families existed—in fact, just as they do now—to define outsiders. Widows and orphans, illegitimate children—these people had no power, no authority, no place. They were not full humans, because they did not belong to a family.
Jesus just burns that sucker down.
It doesn’t matter anymore, he says, that you’re related by blood, by circumcision, by name, by property, by geographic boundaries. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Jew or a Greek, slave or free, male or female. We’re all children of God: born naked, with no vestiges of family position or citizenship that we can carry into the kingdom. We are liberated from human rules about who belongs and who has power and who deserves to be part of a family.”
November 28, 2014
The Rev. Sara Miles, the Minister and Director of the Food Pantry of St. Gregory of Nyssa in Los Angeles, writes about her work with residents, rich and poor in LA.
Ms. Miles, her co-workers and volunteers take the local (and some not so local) misfits and turn them into workers and volunteers. She take adults and groups of children brought up in luxury and privilege and places them side by side with the children and adults from the "other side of the tracks" , teaching them the meaning of charity, love and a sense of “people.” The meaning of when Christ says, "Whatever you did for the least of My brothers and sisters, you did for Me." She shows us that faith without following actions cannot work. They are two sides of the same coin. You can’t have one without the other.
She not only talks the talk, but walks the walk.
Her story makes you want to be there with her and Jesus, gathering the food, cooking the meals, empathizing with the lonely, healing the sick in mind and body and feeding those who may not have the wherewithal to feed themselves and their families.
It will open your eyes as they, too, struggle to provide, never losing faith, ever comforting, ever struggling to make a better world for those around them. She smacks away our smug attitude about the "laziness and stupidity of the poor." It gives us hope for a kinder world and that, yes, we can all be followers of Christ. Wherever we are, whatever we do.
I give this book five stars, not only for the message the book sends, but by the way Ms. Miles writes-drawing you ever into the church and its Christ-like teachings, ever so gently encouraging the reader that this may be the way we all should live.
Sara Miles was a former cook and war correspondent before she became a minister and founded the Food Pantry of St. Gregory. She also wrote “Faith in the Streets” and “Take this Bread: A Radical Conversion.”
Patricia A. Guthrie
Waterlilies Over my Grave 2008
In the Arms of the Enemy 2007
Ms. Miles, her co-workers and volunteers take the local (and some not so local) misfits and turn them into workers and volunteers. She take adults and groups of children brought up in luxury and privilege and places them side by side with the children and adults from the "other side of the tracks" , teaching them the meaning of charity, love and a sense of “people.” The meaning of when Christ says, "Whatever you did for the least of My brothers and sisters, you did for Me." She shows us that faith without following actions cannot work. They are two sides of the same coin. You can’t have one without the other.
She not only talks the talk, but walks the walk.
Her story makes you want to be there with her and Jesus, gathering the food, cooking the meals, empathizing with the lonely, healing the sick in mind and body and feeding those who may not have the wherewithal to feed themselves and their families.
It will open your eyes as they, too, struggle to provide, never losing faith, ever comforting, ever struggling to make a better world for those around them. She smacks away our smug attitude about the "laziness and stupidity of the poor." It gives us hope for a kinder world and that, yes, we can all be followers of Christ. Wherever we are, whatever we do.
I give this book five stars, not only for the message the book sends, but by the way Ms. Miles writes-drawing you ever into the church and its Christ-like teachings, ever so gently encouraging the reader that this may be the way we all should live.
Sara Miles was a former cook and war correspondent before she became a minister and founded the Food Pantry of St. Gregory. She also wrote “Faith in the Streets” and “Take this Bread: A Radical Conversion.”
Patricia A. Guthrie
Waterlilies Over my Grave 2008
In the Arms of the Enemy 2007
February 26, 2011
Maybe this would have made a better magazine article. Jesus Freak starts fairly well, but it quickly becomes repetitious, predictable, and dull. Almost every character the author mentions having met after getting involved with a San Francisco church is introduced as unusual and interesting; but there is almost nothing that ever shows the reader what made them so interesting to her. The only one who might have held our attention is the author herself, and she is very reticent on that subject -- on her past, that is. Not too reticent on her present. There seems to be a sub-genre in full bloom of politically oriented personalities whose disappointments or frustrations in life send them back to their religious roots. Then they tell us (directly, or sometimes indirectly) what tremendous Christians they are, now, and how hard it is to be them, how much effort it takes. To me, there are few subjects with more potential for excitement, discovery, reflection and speculation than Biblical studies of varying kinds -- scholarship, interpretation, even anthropology -- but this little sub-genre is not one of them. There is invariably too much self-pity, too much self-appreciation, or, often, both.
February 28, 2010
What the author is talking about in this book is radical Christianity. The really odd thing is that she is only listening to the words of Jesus and acting on them. This should be common Christianity. Sara and her Church are actually feeding the hungry and cooking for them too, instead of the practice of many Churches who have a food pantry open at specified hours. I was attracted to this book because of the title. The book is well named because it harkens back to that time when we were putting the Bible into action instead of just playing Church. I did not agree with all her ways of looking at things, and that is ok. The Bible says "by their fruits you will know them". If that is the case, then Sara Miles is sprouting fruit all over the place. This is a wonderful book that you should read.
June 29, 2014
Kind of a bummer I found the main trope of the book (Jesus as "Boyfriend") so damn annoying and simultaneously creepy. Raises all sorts of consent issues for me that makes my skin crawl (Jesus as the boyfriend who won't back off? Really, really terrible image.) I get how Sara's trying to challenge folks into a fresher conception of intimacy with the divine with an updated take on Jesus as "Bridegroom"--and that it's super-meaningful for her and others in her life--but it doesn't work for me. At all. Jesus as "Boyfriend" also misses out on all the potential fun of marriage metaphor/theology. < / geek >
Oh well. Still was really moved by the connections Sara makes between cooking, feeding, eating, and "God's work in the world." I have to admit that *Take This Bread* is my favorite of the three spiritual autobiographies that she's written.
Oh well. Still was really moved by the connections Sara makes between cooking, feeding, eating, and "God's work in the world." I have to admit that *Take This Bread* is my favorite of the three spiritual autobiographies that she's written.
January 8, 2017
Couldn't put it down. It's an incredibly well written book. I read her first book and was familiar with her. I also volunteer in a soup kitchen and a food pantry and have lived some of the same journey that she shared. I too see Jesus in the people we serve. Like Sara both the pantry and the soup kitchen are like church. They are definitely a community and they are a huge part of my life. I like Sara too because she is unorthodox and she brings a welcome freshness to holiness and what it means to be holy while remaining wholly human.
October 5, 2015
Disclaimer: i am an atheist and survivor of rabid fundamentalism. That said, i couldn't put this book down. Amazing storyteller Sara Miles lets us on the inside of running a food pantry that feeds over 800 people in the dregs of San Francisco. Let's just say this: i'm all for using Twinkies as communion bread.
June 1, 2018
Messy church is not about Bible stories for preschoolers with glue sticks. Sara Miles talks about where church gets really messy, where Christians are called to act, to be the hands, the feet, the face of Jesus in broken inner cities, for people with addiction problems and mental health issues that make them hard to get close to.
The Food Pantry she started in her church feeds hundreds of people weekly. There is no complex form-filling to assess need, no questions asked, just free food to give away. I found that really inspiring.
The second section of the book is about healing. She starts with a group of health care workers who feel burned out and want to know where Jesus is in all that mess. This is not a book in which miracle cures are being seen daily, but one in which healing comes to the person through relationship and human value.
Likewise, the third section is not about dead people not remaining dead, but about legacy and continuity.
All really good stuff, highly recommended.
The Food Pantry she started in her church feeds hundreds of people weekly. There is no complex form-filling to assess need, no questions asked, just free food to give away. I found that really inspiring.
The second section of the book is about healing. She starts with a group of health care workers who feel burned out and want to know where Jesus is in all that mess. This is not a book in which miracle cures are being seen daily, but one in which healing comes to the person through relationship and human value.
Likewise, the third section is not about dead people not remaining dead, but about legacy and continuity.
All really good stuff, highly recommended.
July 16, 2019
I love how in love the author is with Jesus and I totally agree with her about how we are Jesus's hands and feet to the lost, hungry and hurting world. I do believe that Jesus is the only way He is the truth and the life. Healing sometimes happens here on earth but sometimes it happens in heaven. I know we can have assurance that if you ask for forgiveness and believe that Jesus is the son of God, and that He is welcomed as your saviour into your life you can have eternal life with him and God in heaven. I love the promise that he says I tell you the truth" I go to prepare a place for you and I will return for you. Don't miss out, earth is great but fails by far in comparison to what awaits us on the other side:) ❤️
September 4, 2019
I continued to find the boyfriend analogy lacking (and rather unappealing) but the rest of the book was a good solid four stars. It was not life changing but it certainly is inspiring. Loving Jesus, according to Sara Miles, is all about the *doing*. I think it was Ann Voskamp who said that love is not a noun, it's a verb. God is love. Jesus was God incarnate and spent His whole life loving the unloved. So let's get on with prioritising love, service and compassion. Life is short. Let us love to the best of our humble ability. God will take what we give and transform it, by grace, into something extraordinary. That is the heartfelt and wonderful message of this book. Thank you, Sara.
August 24, 2017
I have to admit ... the title of this book almost caused me not to read it, even though I loved Sara Miles' other book, Take This Bread. But I'm glad that I did and recommend it to anyone who is curious about this liberal Christian's perspective on how to implement all of those seemingly-impossible-to-achieve instructions about forgiveness, loving your neighbors, and all the miracles like turning water into wine and bringing the dead back to life.
July 31, 2018
This book is a description of exactly how I image Jesus imagines his church to be. My favorite quote; "You have been forgiven everything. Go and do likewise." Likewise being feeding, healing, raising the dead and not in the ways you imagine. . .if you have even imagined raising the dead. This is a must read for anyone who relishes a love story and everyone who thinks they have a "boyfriend" named Jesus!
March 1, 2019
I'm sorry, but I just can't find any use for the phrase, "Jesus was healed of His racism." Only reason I'm not giving this one star is bc I believe the author was trying to be poetic and/or I may or may not be able to see her interpreting the particular story in a postmodern way. There were a few other places in this book too where I wasn't sure if the differences between our POVs were bc of a difference in interpretation... Or just straight-up blasphemy.
November 25, 2019
A slim but powerful collection of vignettes and moments during Sara Miles' work at her food pantry. She connects each one to a command of Jesus--feeding, healing, raising the dead, etc.--and writes about her unapologetic fierce love for Jesus. Her relationship with Jesus is enviable and I was particularly impressed by the story of Sarah's wife, Martha. Like me, Martha was very squeamish around blood and yet, despite this, she worked through it because she felt called to be a nurse, a healer. Incredibly inspiring.
January 4, 2022
My first book of the new year. Wow! This book tells the amazing story of convert Sara Miles who came to Christianity mid-life through a mission-based church St. Gregory's of Nyssa in San Francisco. She founded a food ministry for the homeless & the indigent, many of whom were mentally ill or addicted. This narrative not only tells of experiences, it relates and interprets them through the lens of the scriptures. Profound.
November 28, 2019
I read this book fast because it’s an exhilarating read. Thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining with so many likeable characters, Sara Miles talks about how she sees Jesus I’m so many of the people, the drunks and drug addicts, in her life. It’s a beautiful books that makes me want to do all the things she’s doing! Amen.
November 19, 2025
What a powerful book! I found the tone earthy and at times almost flippant, but heartfelt and a meaningful story of faith in action for and with everyone. This was a church ladies book group selection and I know our discussion will be interesting, to say the least.
November 1, 2020
Remarkable story....
February 15, 2021
I would really personally benefit from Sara Miles writing more books.
April 11, 2023
One of the most inspiring books I've ever read, and one of the most encouraging.
April 2, 2024
Can’t say this enough - amazing!! Sara Miles walks us through what lived faith can really look like. Amen!
October 16, 2011
I want to start by saying I really loved this book, and going back through it makes me love it more.
I'm a fan of Miles' first book, "Take this Bread," and I adore her experience of an open table and her church's practice of it. For those who haven't read it, she wandered into St. Gregory's Church, took Communion without being baptized first or really knowing much of anything, and in eating that bread, she knew Jesus. Hers is an incredibly powerful witness to the mystery of what happens at the Eucharist.
But I'm UCC, not Episcopal, and I realize I have less at stake than people in her own denomination might have. The first time I knowingly served Communion to an adult I knew had never been baptized, I got over the need for a rule immediately. No way would I ever turn a person back for that reason, or really any, because who's to say how God might work through bread and juice? Clearly, in Miles' case, powerfully.
Her writing is frank and profane and utterly holy, full of gorgeous phrases, images, whole paragraphs.
This second book gathers stories from her work at St. Gregory's, where she now runs a huge food program, in the following categories: Feeding, Healing, Forgiving, and Raising from the Dead.
I adored the first three sections. I have dog-eared pages and marked them to be able to find the quotes that stirred something in me. The first section takes us back to the feeding ministry, and it feels fresh, not like a repeat of Take This Bread. The second section is about healing, both about being called to it and how prone to burn-out healers can be. The shorter third section is about forgiving, and how hard it is to do and how important.
Here are some of the passages I want to be sure and remember:
Prayer can't cure. All prayer can do is heal, because healing comes embedded in relationship, and prayer is one of the deepest forms of relationship--with God and with other people. And through relationship, there can be healing in the absence of cure. From "Healing," p. 85
On burnout and asking for help,
And yet, when I could force myself to do it, I saw how getting to the point of asking was an essential part of my healing. As much as I might fantasize that my real friends, my most beloved family members, the best priest or teacher or spiritual director would guess just want I wanted and provide it, the fact was I had to ask. I had to put myself in a place of truth, or admitting that I needed help.
"What do you think I should do?" I'd finally say to Paul. I hated being told what to do.
"Honey, I'm worried," I'd finally say to Martha. I always wanted to be the one who told others not to worry.
"I'm afraid," I'd finally say aloud. "I'm upset. Hold me."
And then, usually, I'd discover--no matter whether the person I asked had the perfect response, whether the help disappointed or delighted--that something had changed. I wasn't alone with myself, with my ingrown desires and denials, with the thing that I'd been stewing about in private. I'd given myself over to a relationship. From "Healing," p. 100
One more, okay? This time she's talking about family and the way Jesus came to break them apart, according to his own words.
But Jesus was not talking about the cozy, affective private household idolized by contemporary Christians. In Jesus' time, family ruled as much as the temple did, or soldiers of the imperial army. Your very name, your identity, was determined by whose son or daughter you were. our role in life was completely circumscribed by your position in the family. Your freedom as an individual was negligible inside the family and in the network of families that made up tribes and nations. The father ruled the mother, the mother-in-law ruled the daughter-in-law, the elder brother ruled the younger brother.
And central to the construction of family, of course, was who was outside it. Families existed--in fact, just as they do now--to define outsiders. Widows and orphans, illegitimate children--these people had no power, no authority, no place. They were not full humans, because they did not belong to a family.
Jesus just burns that sucker down. From "Raising the Dead," p. 152
It's not that Miles is telling me things I didn't already know on some level. It's her *way* of telling them that feels sharp and fresh and invitational. When I read about her church, I want to go there. I mean, I am not someone drawn to Byzantine chant. Not at all. I'm less formal and less liturgical. But I would like to be there and feel it wash over me, because she makes it that real. It's brilliant writing. I hope she writes another book.
I'm not quoting my favorite paragraph, because I hope you'll buy her book yourself, but I'll tell you where to find it: the second paragraph on page 99.
I'm a fan of Miles' first book, "Take this Bread," and I adore her experience of an open table and her church's practice of it. For those who haven't read it, she wandered into St. Gregory's Church, took Communion without being baptized first or really knowing much of anything, and in eating that bread, she knew Jesus. Hers is an incredibly powerful witness to the mystery of what happens at the Eucharist.
But I'm UCC, not Episcopal, and I realize I have less at stake than people in her own denomination might have. The first time I knowingly served Communion to an adult I knew had never been baptized, I got over the need for a rule immediately. No way would I ever turn a person back for that reason, or really any, because who's to say how God might work through bread and juice? Clearly, in Miles' case, powerfully.
Her writing is frank and profane and utterly holy, full of gorgeous phrases, images, whole paragraphs.
This second book gathers stories from her work at St. Gregory's, where she now runs a huge food program, in the following categories: Feeding, Healing, Forgiving, and Raising from the Dead.
I adored the first three sections. I have dog-eared pages and marked them to be able to find the quotes that stirred something in me. The first section takes us back to the feeding ministry, and it feels fresh, not like a repeat of Take This Bread. The second section is about healing, both about being called to it and how prone to burn-out healers can be. The shorter third section is about forgiving, and how hard it is to do and how important.
Here are some of the passages I want to be sure and remember:
Prayer can't cure. All prayer can do is heal, because healing comes embedded in relationship, and prayer is one of the deepest forms of relationship--with God and with other people. And through relationship, there can be healing in the absence of cure. From "Healing," p. 85
On burnout and asking for help,
And yet, when I could force myself to do it, I saw how getting to the point of asking was an essential part of my healing. As much as I might fantasize that my real friends, my most beloved family members, the best priest or teacher or spiritual director would guess just want I wanted and provide it, the fact was I had to ask. I had to put myself in a place of truth, or admitting that I needed help.
"What do you think I should do?" I'd finally say to Paul. I hated being told what to do.
"Honey, I'm worried," I'd finally say to Martha. I always wanted to be the one who told others not to worry.
"I'm afraid," I'd finally say aloud. "I'm upset. Hold me."
And then, usually, I'd discover--no matter whether the person I asked had the perfect response, whether the help disappointed or delighted--that something had changed. I wasn't alone with myself, with my ingrown desires and denials, with the thing that I'd been stewing about in private. I'd given myself over to a relationship. From "Healing," p. 100
One more, okay? This time she's talking about family and the way Jesus came to break them apart, according to his own words.
But Jesus was not talking about the cozy, affective private household idolized by contemporary Christians. In Jesus' time, family ruled as much as the temple did, or soldiers of the imperial army. Your very name, your identity, was determined by whose son or daughter you were. our role in life was completely circumscribed by your position in the family. Your freedom as an individual was negligible inside the family and in the network of families that made up tribes and nations. The father ruled the mother, the mother-in-law ruled the daughter-in-law, the elder brother ruled the younger brother.
And central to the construction of family, of course, was who was outside it. Families existed--in fact, just as they do now--to define outsiders. Widows and orphans, illegitimate children--these people had no power, no authority, no place. They were not full humans, because they did not belong to a family.
Jesus just burns that sucker down. From "Raising the Dead," p. 152
It's not that Miles is telling me things I didn't already know on some level. It's her *way* of telling them that feels sharp and fresh and invitational. When I read about her church, I want to go there. I mean, I am not someone drawn to Byzantine chant. Not at all. I'm less formal and less liturgical. But I would like to be there and feel it wash over me, because she makes it that real. It's brilliant writing. I hope she writes another book.
I'm not quoting my favorite paragraph, because I hope you'll buy her book yourself, but I'll tell you where to find it: the second paragraph on page 99.
June 22, 2015
"Every single thing the resurrected Jesus does on earth, he does through our bodies."
Sara Miles received the bread in a communion service at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco and much to the surprise of her sceptical mind, she experienced Jesus. Since that mystical encounter in worship Miles, a veteran war correspondent founded and directs The Food Pantry, and serves as Director of Ministry at the church that gives food to 800 people each week right off the altar in the sanctuary. Miles explores lessons from her work here with powerful stories illustrating her main point that Jesus gives us the power and presence to feed the hungry, to heal the sick, to forgive sins, and to raise the dead.
Miles refers to Jesus as "The Boyfriend" and notes he is a promiscuous boyfriend at that. Her boyfriend calls his followers to do something about their faith. She writes, "I found that Jesus does not anywhere in the Gospels, spend too much time calling his people to have feelings or ideas or opinions. He calls us to act. Bear these words of mine and act on them."
Some of my other favorite quotes give a flavor for the well-written, challenging, but quick, read:
"St. Gregory's had given me room not only to receive, but to give. And it allowed me to act as if the stuff we did on Sundays meant something and was a guide to our whole lives in church and outside. Worship and service were parts of a whole."
"Jesus willingness to become unclean himself totally shifts the boundaries of order. When Jesus enters into relationship with outcasts and shares in their social death, he starts a process of resurrection. The unclean become full, living people, born again. They are reincorporated, that is "rebodied" into the community and the community is healed into wholeness from separation, made new."
"We could begin to see the most outrageous, impossible other as Jesus saw us all--weak, sinful, utterly beloved. This is what I saw happen in the food pantry precisely because we didn't try to keep the weirdos out. Almost everyone there was outside the order."
"Like everyone else, I wanted a community bigger than the one I deserved on my own merits."
"The truth is that suffering can become the foundation of faith. If we're not scared to touch the sore places with love. If we don't hide ourselves away in fear, but get close enough to others to feel God's breath on our skin, everything that hurts the Body of Christ can let us know past doubt that new life is possible, not by forgetting evil but through, in terms that are both secular and religious, truth and reconciliation."
"Faith, as I was beginning to see, was hardly a miracle. It was more like living in a different key, being tuned, as the hymn said, to grace."
"Jesus keeps calling us to share in God's work of touching, healing, feeding, and mercy, not in some imaginary or a theoretical way, but physically in order that resurrection can happen."
"And God forbid you should claim authority to act in Jesus' name without a feasibility study, a mission statement, a capital outlay of $10,000, and at least six months of committee meetings. But ordinary people still hope, suspect, and believe that they can be Jesus."
But the quotes miss the personal stories, hers and those of people to and with whom she ministers. Along the way the way the Food Pantry goes about offering those who come in need a chance to serve and lead is what I find most inspiring.
Sara Miles received the bread in a communion service at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco and much to the surprise of her sceptical mind, she experienced Jesus. Since that mystical encounter in worship Miles, a veteran war correspondent founded and directs The Food Pantry, and serves as Director of Ministry at the church that gives food to 800 people each week right off the altar in the sanctuary. Miles explores lessons from her work here with powerful stories illustrating her main point that Jesus gives us the power and presence to feed the hungry, to heal the sick, to forgive sins, and to raise the dead.
Miles refers to Jesus as "The Boyfriend" and notes he is a promiscuous boyfriend at that. Her boyfriend calls his followers to do something about their faith. She writes, "I found that Jesus does not anywhere in the Gospels, spend too much time calling his people to have feelings or ideas or opinions. He calls us to act. Bear these words of mine and act on them."
Some of my other favorite quotes give a flavor for the well-written, challenging, but quick, read:
"St. Gregory's had given me room not only to receive, but to give. And it allowed me to act as if the stuff we did on Sundays meant something and was a guide to our whole lives in church and outside. Worship and service were parts of a whole."
"Jesus willingness to become unclean himself totally shifts the boundaries of order. When Jesus enters into relationship with outcasts and shares in their social death, he starts a process of resurrection. The unclean become full, living people, born again. They are reincorporated, that is "rebodied" into the community and the community is healed into wholeness from separation, made new."
"We could begin to see the most outrageous, impossible other as Jesus saw us all--weak, sinful, utterly beloved. This is what I saw happen in the food pantry precisely because we didn't try to keep the weirdos out. Almost everyone there was outside the order."
"Like everyone else, I wanted a community bigger than the one I deserved on my own merits."
"The truth is that suffering can become the foundation of faith. If we're not scared to touch the sore places with love. If we don't hide ourselves away in fear, but get close enough to others to feel God's breath on our skin, everything that hurts the Body of Christ can let us know past doubt that new life is possible, not by forgetting evil but through, in terms that are both secular and religious, truth and reconciliation."
"Faith, as I was beginning to see, was hardly a miracle. It was more like living in a different key, being tuned, as the hymn said, to grace."
"Jesus keeps calling us to share in God's work of touching, healing, feeding, and mercy, not in some imaginary or a theoretical way, but physically in order that resurrection can happen."
"And God forbid you should claim authority to act in Jesus' name without a feasibility study, a mission statement, a capital outlay of $10,000, and at least six months of committee meetings. But ordinary people still hope, suspect, and believe that they can be Jesus."
But the quotes miss the personal stories, hers and those of people to and with whom she ministers. Along the way the way the Food Pantry goes about offering those who come in need a chance to serve and lead is what I find most inspiring.
June 10, 2011
My daughter, who is a minister, is leading a group on spiritual memoirs and has chosen Miles's earlier book, Take This Bread as the first selection. That one is a true spiritual memoir and will also give the reader Sara Miles's fascinating "backstory". But it's not strictly necessary to read it first in order to be stirred by Jesus Freak, even though in some ways it's an extended epilogue to Take This Bread.
The subtitle says it all: Feeding, Healing, Raising the Dead. Lest this last phrase scare you off, there is no charlatan here, but rather someone who really ministers to the dying and their families, as well as to the sick and the hungry.
As detailed in Take This Bread, Miles, a middle-aged, middle-class member of the radical intelligentsia, rather suddenly became a Christian and active in St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church [http://www.saintgregorys.org/]. Living in the Mission District of San Francisco, and coming to Christ's teachings with fresh eyes, she took them seriously and got the church to start a free food distribution program. This did not happen without struggle. But as Jesus Freak opens, the food distribution has become a vital part of the church and community, with those who came to receive often staying to give as volunteers. Through her engagement with the diverse people of the food pantry, and with other people in the church, Miles also gets involved in healing ministry and, as a logical corollary when the body cannot be healed even when the soul can, in ministry to the dying.
Not that she makes this seem easy. One of the best things about Miles's books (besides the writing) is that she doesn't sugar-coat the realities of trying to be a Christian. Not only does she have to serve people who are drunk, who stink, who act crazy and can be scary -- she also has to deal with other Christians and fellow church members who may be annoying, fearful, stubborn, resistant to change, or simply don't see things the same way she does. And yet she knows that we are called to love.
Jesus Freak doesn't say much that's new, philosophically or theologically, for those of us who grew up in the church. You can get the same ideas from reading Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. But each generation needs to be recalled, reminded, shaken out of complacency, and Sara Miles gives us that needed wake-up call. Highly recommended.
The subtitle says it all: Feeding, Healing, Raising the Dead. Lest this last phrase scare you off, there is no charlatan here, but rather someone who really ministers to the dying and their families, as well as to the sick and the hungry.
As detailed in Take This Bread, Miles, a middle-aged, middle-class member of the radical intelligentsia, rather suddenly became a Christian and active in St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church [http://www.saintgregorys.org/]. Living in the Mission District of San Francisco, and coming to Christ's teachings with fresh eyes, she took them seriously and got the church to start a free food distribution program. This did not happen without struggle. But as Jesus Freak opens, the food distribution has become a vital part of the church and community, with those who came to receive often staying to give as volunteers. Through her engagement with the diverse people of the food pantry, and with other people in the church, Miles also gets involved in healing ministry and, as a logical corollary when the body cannot be healed even when the soul can, in ministry to the dying.
Not that she makes this seem easy. One of the best things about Miles's books (besides the writing) is that she doesn't sugar-coat the realities of trying to be a Christian. Not only does she have to serve people who are drunk, who stink, who act crazy and can be scary -- she also has to deal with other Christians and fellow church members who may be annoying, fearful, stubborn, resistant to change, or simply don't see things the same way she does. And yet she knows that we are called to love.
Jesus Freak doesn't say much that's new, philosophically or theologically, for those of us who grew up in the church. You can get the same ideas from reading Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. But each generation needs to be recalled, reminded, shaken out of complacency, and Sara Miles gives us that needed wake-up call. Highly recommended.
June 17, 2015
i read books like i eat food (and food is love in this book) like i do everything...too fast. (i apologize for no caps) i just read her first book and started right in on the second. the two are blurred now. FIRST, before i begin rambling...the takeaway from her books is her belief that all creatures need...food. which is love in her mind. it's about the poor, destitute, mentally ill and addicted'...the people who come for food at the pantry and stay to have a home cooked meal AND then volunteer...every friday. i struggled (in an envious way) with the way she described her life now...so shocking given her atheist upbringing. the ritual of the episcopal church...i thought it was beautiful and appealed to my senses, artistic brain, aesthetic cravings (which have no expression in my family history weirdly) ...incense...anointing with oil...chanting...dancing...singing and touching. lots and lots of emphasis on touching. very visceral. which was, to her, indicative of healing...not curing she makes clear, but healing. i believe this. i was/am jealous, envious of this. (but if i were plunked down in her church now i would simply be the observer, as usual...and could not participate in the intimacy of it all) i lacked all that in my evangelical upbringing so great was the terror at the time of the teeniest leaning toward catholicism (which was the islam of the day-meaning terrifyingly heretical...). BUT. the rational, reasoning, and scientific part of my brain kept interrupting. i kept saying to myself...so...what does this mean to the compartmentalizing religious people have to do to keep the science separate from the faith part (unseen, invisible, magical, unproven). anyway. i prefer her brain to mine. i think all that 'stuff' they do in their pantry community is the way to go. i believe, as science has proven, that your brain doesn't know the difference between what is true or 'real'(like as true as 2 +2 = 4) and what is just what you BELIEVE to be true. science has proven that universally it doesn't matter WHAT you believe to a certain point...prayer is prayer and faith is faith. it is healing and healthy. and touch and aromatherapy (incense and the smell of food) and dancing are as well. i had none of this growing up. the only sense addressed was hearing...music and hearing those old hymns is still such an emotional experience for me...like the Garrison Keillor radio broadcast where he inserts his childhood hymns into a completely secular show. (he subscribes to the episcopalian church now b.t.w.) perhaps that is one of the reasons i am so ill now? i have her third book, out in 2014, on order now.
November 28, 2014
As someone who works in a ministry that focuses on forming relationships with people experiencing homelessness, this book was relatable. The books brought up stories that were very similar to my experiences which was cool. I do have to say though that she sometimes uses overly flowery language to describe her theology that muddles rather than clarifies. She focuses in on "the boyfriend" but doesn't take enough time explaining why she chooses that term instead of the traditional "father" metaphor or a more gender-neutral term such as "the best friend". It was confusing at times.
I certainly can't fault her for being so fixated on Jesus and Christianity--the genre of the book is Christian Spirituality. But it was a bit much at times. I wished that she had included more personal narrative and less on her personal understandings of faith (I'm sure most of it was just who she is as a person-she thinks about Jesus all the time. I guess maybe that's what the boyfriend stuff is about? You think of your significant other all throughout the day even if they aren't there with you??). I was expecting a memoir but instead got more of a personal theological examination.
I certainly can't fault her for being so fixated on Jesus and Christianity--the genre of the book is Christian Spirituality. But it was a bit much at times. I wished that she had included more personal narrative and less on her personal understandings of faith (I'm sure most of it was just who she is as a person-she thinks about Jesus all the time. I guess maybe that's what the boyfriend stuff is about? You think of your significant other all throughout the day even if they aren't there with you??). I was expecting a memoir but instead got more of a personal theological examination.
March 4, 2010
When I started this book I thought "oh great, a preachy preacher who is going to tell me how awesome she is" BUT I was pleasantly surprised to find that this is not what this book was about. It is all about trying to live your life according to what you believe and simply doing what you can for others. Most of it is described through her work in a food pantry. The analogies with food are really insightful.
The book itself appeals to a wide audience and not just those who consider themselves religious or even Christian. Her personal battles with life, death, poverty and addiction were truly enlightening and encouraging.
I only gave it three stars because there were times where the author's prose was forgettable and I found myself skimming to get to the "good" parts. In addition, I'm just not generally a fan of non-fiction. If I had to read non-fiction, then this is something I would choose because it was interesting and entertaining. It was really motivating and a good reminder of what we're supposed to be doing here as humans.
The book itself appeals to a wide audience and not just those who consider themselves religious or even Christian. Her personal battles with life, death, poverty and addiction were truly enlightening and encouraging.
I only gave it three stars because there were times where the author's prose was forgettable and I found myself skimming to get to the "good" parts. In addition, I'm just not generally a fan of non-fiction. If I had to read non-fiction, then this is something I would choose because it was interesting and entertaining. It was really motivating and a good reminder of what we're supposed to be doing here as humans.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 107 reviews