Ruth Winkler has been making bread for the past 16 years. Her husband gave her an Oster bread maker in the early 2000’s initially which initially peaked her interest, but it wasn’t until her pastor gave her the book Give Us this Day: Lenten Reflections on Baking Bread and Discipleship by Christopher Levan that she began a regular practice of bread making.

She smiles, noticing the book that introduced her to her favorite spiritual practice was indeed written by someone whose name closely resembles the word leaven. Welcome Holy Mystery.

Bread serves as a beautiful metaphor for our spiritual lives, she says. Since 2008, Winkler’s breadmaking has taken many forms as she has learned to trust the process.

“Sometimes I braid the bread. Sometimes I twist the bread into pretzel shapes, and I also love to use a fish mold,” Winkler says. “My grandsons love to make little rolls for dinner, and I recently tried my hand at making flower-shaped bread. It is fun to see all of the different ways bread can be shaped.”

She reminds us that God is shaping us in different ways. We are all unique. That’s how bread is.

At the mercy of yeast

In her early years her bread making, Winkler made bread several times a week, using her Give Us this Day as a guide for recipes and prayers. She also developed a practice during this time of giving bread away to her neighbors and friends. These days, her baking has slowed down some but her confidence and experience have expanded.

Whether she is making sourdough, Italian or Portuguese bread or even cinnamon rolls, there’s almost always a sense of play, grounding and relationship with the Holy and herself.

Variables like temperature and kneading impact the ability for the yeast to rise. Sometimes, it is beyond our control, Winkler says. And that is okay. She has learned to accept the outcome, trusting that God will bring what God wants to bring forth. She reminds us that there is sometimes good leaven and bad leaven in the bread - even if we try to only have good leaven.

Regardless, God is in the process, she says.

Leaven of our lives

Winkler offers Jesus’ parable of a woman making bread that is found in both the Gospels of Luke and Matthew.

“The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.” He also says, “The kingdom of heaven is like yeast that a woman took and mixed into about sixty pounds of flour until it worked all through the dough.”

While we can take away several insights from these sacred words, perhaps Jesus was saying that the Kingdom of God (love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control) remain unseen but are evident in the love and light displayed through the way we live our life.

Similarly, we can’t see the leaven when making bread, but we can see the gifts of good leaven in fluffy, beautiful, tasty bread once it is baked. Winkler invites us back to Scripture.

“I love the parables about the leaven,” Winkler says. “The women who put the leaven in the bread mix, waited and waited. It grew and grew. That’s how the leaven in our lives should be. We grow, and we are filled with the Spirit so we can share the Spirit with others.”

Winkler’s husband John Park Winkler died of COVID-19 during the pandemic. She says he was her biggest encourager often saying after each batch of bread: “You’re getting so good at this.” She took a break from bread making after her loss but says she has slowly returned to this regular practice of making bread and feel his presence each time.

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This interview was created by Emily Turner Watson. She is a trained spiritual director, writer and partner of Retreat Houst Spirituality Center. She is also host of Tending Spaces to Bear Spiritual Fruit, a podcast produced by Retreat House. Part of her ministry is to hold space for emotional and spiritual healing and connections through listening, writing and prayer.