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I love the idea of baking bread: sequestering myself to the kitchen for an idyllic afternoon of deftly mixing ingredients, kneading fresh dough, and placing the confection in the oven to rise to its full height as a loaf. I picture myself as a monk secreting myself away to a simple chapel where I wither away the hours in prayer, stringing together my words and requests into a message fit for heaven. I’ll knead my batch of humanity into a song second only to the Psalms. And I’ll wait with expectation for the Holy Spirit to heat my words into a bread baked for angels. This is how I like to imagine what it’s like to bake bread, but the actual process is less “as it is in heaven” and far more “on earth”.

I was living in Germany the first time I baked bread. Being in the homeland of the Brothers Grimm, one would expect I had a legion of elves and fairies at my command to conjure bread from the lump of dough before me. But I couldn’t even summon a simple woodland creature to my side. Instead, I had to painstakingly labor over the amorphous clod for hours. Thankfully, the sun doesn’t set until well after 9pm in northern Germany.

Despite my lack of storybook assistance, my mitbewohner (roommate) Jan patiently helped me work through the recipe. Together we wiled away the minutes as we pressed into the dough. Though my arms ached from the effort, I knew that something sumptuous would emerge from the oven.

While I was proud of what we made, what I’ll always remember the most is how we got to know each other in the process. I had another roommate who once said, “When people break bread together, God is there.”

I really didn’t like making bread, but breaking into that loaf with Jan and sharing the slices with him is a memory I deeply cherish. His English wasn’t great, and my German was worse. But somehow we understood each other. Food freely given from one friend to another is a language all its own.

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Culture Brewing is a brewery I often visit in Manhattan Beach, California. As I sip on West Coast IPA’s, I’ll read a book, write, or edit photos in this space. It’s only two blocks from a picturesque pier I love to photograph. Culture is a space that fosters my creativity. Words and ideas flow more easily here than at home.

The wall opposite the bar features the work of local artists. You can buy photos and paintings from creators who found inspiration in Southern California. When I survey the pieces hanging from the wall, I wonder where my art will end up. Will my poems find themselves on a bookstore shelf? Will my photos hang on a gallery’s walls? Will I even make something deemed worthy of space in general?

I usually post my poems and photos on Instagram. I pray that the Spirit will stop the marathon scrolling of fingers long enough for someone to see my work and be blessed by it. Although I know that God records all my prayers (Psalm 56:8), I fear that some get lost in the algorithm. But in all this, I know I’m searching for something.

Nostalgia has come to describe a wistful longing for better days. But the word originally denoted an intense desire to return home. Like Odysseus embarking on a perilous journey after the long war, we wander through the years like tourists without a destination. The farther we go, the deeper we yearn. We want to go home. This is true for my art as well. I am nostalgic, in the old sense, for my poems and photos. I yearn for them to find a place with people who will love them simply for what they are.

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I know my creativity has a purpose. But the knowing feels more like faith than reason, a hope searching for certainty. As I look nostalgically at my art, I sometimes remember the time I baked bread with Jan. It was the hard work of a baker wrist-deep in dough. The effort can be so arduous at times that I forget my questions of purpose. But when the dough is put in the oven, when my poems are sent to the publisher, and when my photos are uploaded to Instagram, I become the contemplative monk hoping and praying that my meager offerings will give a glimpse of heaven.

I’m convinced that making art has a lot in common with baking bread. The output of the baker and the artist usually end up on a store shelf where they will be the thing that nourishes a starving soul. But sometimes, the bread finds its way to the communion table.

The loaf laid on the altar is part of a pedigree stretching back to the hands of Christ himself. One day at a final supper with his dearest friends, Jesus grabbed bread baked by a common baker. He broke it into pieces and shared it with those around him. “This is my body,” he said, “broken for you.” Like my old roommate once said, “When people break bread together, God is there.” Simple bread in the hands of Jesus that night became an invitation to see the face of God.

This is the reality we encounter when the Lord’s Supper is celebrated. And this is what I believe can be the potential for our art. When we take the everyday, routine work of our hands and offer it to God in simplicity and humility, he will take it into his hands too. Heaven will touch the output of earth and bless it with the presence of the one who is making all things new. Jesus chooses to be present in simple bread and wine, and I believe that he can be present in what we make as well. It’s here that my art finds a home.