Yet You Will Rise

Jesus said that,

"God's kingdom is like yeast that a woman works into the dough for dozens of loaves of barley bread—and waits while the dough rises."*

Before it was ever a fad, sourdough was a whole science. First, you need to have a starter culture, which is created by mixing water and flour and then leaving it to rot in the back of a cupboard somewhere in your kitchen. There are millions of kinds of bacteria and fungi on the earth, and when you expose your 'starter' to the air, it captures a community of organisms and gives them a place to colonize. This ecosystem of wild yeasts and beneficial bacteria work together to add B-vitamins to grains, to break down gluten for better digestion, and to neutralize phytic acid and enzyme inhibitors. It's good for you.

You feed your starter like you would a pet, and after a week or so, it starts to bubble and fizz and change - the colony takes root and grows. At this stage, you take a portion of your yeasty starter and mix it into flour and water and salt, which then goes through a whole process of kneading and proofing and kneading and proofing - which allows this wild colony of yeasts and bacterias to inhabit the whole loaf, changing its outcome and shape - waiting until it's ready to finally bake.

Microbes in the dough produce carbon dioxide that becomes trapped in air pockets in the bread and causes it to rise. If you cut a loaf in half, each hole and opening is the result of the exhalation of a group of yeasts contained inside a kind of gluten dome. Without microbes, bread dough does not produce carbon dioxide. Without gluten, bread dough cannot catch the carbon dioxide produced by microbes. In other words, it all works together to make something delicious, healthy, and pure.

Rob Dunn said:

"The action of making bread is a kind of restoration of certain kinds of biodiversity into our food, onto our bodies and throughout our houses in a way that connects all of these processes.When we make sourdough starters, our bodies and homes flavor our daily bread. And in making sourdough starters, the flour, starter, and bread enrich our bodies and homes."

One last thing - because it uses wild and natural yeast contained in the environment around it, sourdough can taste differently according to where it was made. You can eat sourdough in London, and sourdough in Sydney, and it will have its own unique flavour profile. SELAH, my friend. Selah.

You guys, bread is spiritual - *all-the-holy-hallelujahs* and the people said amen.

The Kingdom of Heaven is like yeast that a woman takes and blends into three measures of flour and then waits until all the dough rises.*

The Kingdom of Heaven isn't isolated and tucked away somewhere safe, untouchable, and sanitised. It is exposed to the wild air, the organisms of the world, the delicate and complex ecosystems of our lives. It wraps itself around us, absorbs us into itself, and integrates us in such a way that we change shape the more we rest in the embrace of it.

The Kingdom of Heaven ruins everything. It putrefies our biases and prejudices and our plans to earn and succeed and buy our way into peace. It takes our traumas and pains, the things that are divisive if left unhealed and unused, and uses those things for our benefit. It breaks it all down, to raise it all back up again into something new, and delicious, and nourishing. It raises our level of consciousness and awareness, it aerates us, bubbles us up to a level where we see ourselves in the Other, in God, and in the trinity of us all together.

When you think of Kingdom, think less of armies and castles and wealth and warriors, and think more of air and flour and water, of being ruined in order to become who you've always been, of dying and coming back to life.

Think of what it is to rise.

(This post is an excerpt from The Practice Co App series called "Yet You Will Rise", available to download for iOS and Android! It includes daily devotionals, phone wallpapers, a daily mindful prompt and more included. Start with a free trial or subscribe to get access to each new series as they come out.)

Mindful Prompt: What's something in your life, now or in the past, that you think has damaged you? Sit with it for a few moments, and as you do, begin to wonder what Kingdom could do with this rotting thing inside you. As corny as it sounds, could it be possible for this situation to become a sourdough starter for who you are becoming?

Much love from  Liz Milani.
Instagram: @thepracticeco