Sara Miles on Religion and Ethics Weekly

From a release:

Sara Miles spent most of her life as an avowed atheist. As a journalist in the 1980s she covered wars in Central America and later became an editor for the left-leaning investigative magazine “Mother Jones.” But her life changed dramatically one day after she walked into St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco and took Communion. At that moment, Miles found both God and her life’s mission: feeding the hungry. Now, with the help of dedicated volunteers, she runs St. Gregory’s Food Pantry, collecting five to six tons of donated bread and tomatoes and groceries every week to share with the poor and homeless.

Lucky Severson talks to Miles about her conversion and mission to help San Francisco’s poor documented in her recent book, “Take This Bread.” Miles says, “I think what I discovered in that moment when I put the bread in my mouth and was so blown away by the reality of Jesus, was that the requirement for faith turned out not to be believing in a doctrine or knowing how to behave in a church, or being the right kind of person, or being raised correctly or repeating the rituals. The requirement for faith seemed to be hunger. It was the hunger that I had always had and the willingness to be fed by something I didn’t understand.”

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I did find the copy of the book that i had bought and I’m hoping to get some reading done this weekend. I’m always curious about people who make this journey because I am following in their footsteps, having been an atheist and coming back to faith and trying to find a way to merge vocation with profession. I’m also fascinated with people who convert as a result of being allowed to the table despite not being a member of the body of Christ.

The difficult thing about some of these books is that many of them are more preoccupied with having been a wretched sinner drinker prior to their conversion. I can’t relate to “getting sober” memoirs and find them grating, perhaps because of my journey as an ACOA.

Sara, thankfully, doesn’t suffer from this self-consciousness. I’ve been wanting this kind of memoir, and love especially how it focuses on communion–which I explain to my secular friends as a purging of negative energy (through Confession) and an inspiration of positive energy (through Eucharist). They often have this face that I can’t explain any other way than newfound comprehension and appreciation.

However, I do note that her grandmother’s name is Helen. Let me just wax self-centered for a moment and complain, once again, that whenever I introduce myself, people seem to automatically with “Oh, I can’t forget that name! My grandmother’s name is Helen.”

Not sister. Not cousin. Not mother or aunt. *Grandmother.* Makes it darn near impossible to be cool.