Every session of Tree of Life's adult Sunday School class begins with a round of saying one's name and answering a short question. Sometimes the question is tied to the lesson at hand ("What was your most recent 'mountain top' experience?"), sometimes to our doings in the world at large ("How are you spending Super Bowl Sunday?").

Yesterday the gospel lesson was Matthew 4:1-11, where we are reminded that we do not live by bread alone. Our Sunday School discussion focused on John 6:1-14, the feeding of the five thousand. So we were asked, "What is your favorite bread or bread experience?"

Bread in all its forms (sandwich loaves, cookies, pretzels, sweet rolls, cake) is my favorite food, as will probably become apparent in Refiguring. It's my food of choice for a snack, for a binge, for dessert, for dreams. There is an eating scene or the use of bread as a symbol in nearly every piece of fiction I write. When I "cook for pleasure" I choose to bake bread. I could talk to you all day about bread.

Going around the circle, we learned a lot about bread. The only good Italian bread comes from DuBois, Pennsylvania. Somebody's grandmother made the world's best rye rusks. You can't get bagels here like the ones in Parsippany.

I talked about the rolls I make during Advent -- Saint Lucia buns, redolent with cardamom. And I talked about the rolls served at The Port Hole restaurant in Charlotte, North Carolina, in the summer of 1972, possibly my only pleasant memory of my time at Duke University.

But I didn't say what was really in my heart. I didn't say that my favorite, most powerful, most sustaining bread experience is in receiving the Eucharist. It's what kept me coming back to Penbrook UCC when I once again sought God after fleeing Him down the days and down the nights of almost twenty years. It's what drew me to Tree of Life, when I sought to have communion every week instead of only ten times a year. It's what sends me to the Catholic church of my childhood for the occasional weekday Mass.

And yet even in a Sunday school setting, in the company of other believers, other pilgrims, I am reluctant to say this aloud. I am reluctant to appear spiritual, pious. I am reluctant to witness.

When the Class of '65 of Bishop McDevitt Catholic High School holds a reunion, we produce a booklet with updates on the lives of our members. For our 25th year we were asked to respond to: "What has been your biggest thrill?"

I wrote, "Being called 'Mommy.'" Others mentioned hiking the Alps, winning awards, starting a business. One classmate, however, shared this: "Receiving Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament."

Oh for that kind of willingness to stand up and be counted.