WHEN I STARTED MEDITATING on the heart behind the Bread & Glitter Journal I did the most appropriate thing I could think of: I made bread. Honestly though, it rather distracted me and by the time I set the kneaded lump of dough to rise in the afternoon sun I had forgotten about articulating a vision of cultural maturity in creative spirituality; I was busy officiating the holy matrimony of flour, yeast, salt and water til’ death and my butter knife shall thee part.

Like all good marriages, dough needs warmth and a wrestle to become the bread of life. The binding vows of gluten won’t form with a half-hearted wrestle, and without that vow the budding affection of yeast is nothing but gas on the breeze. If you want to have any shape to your bread you’ve got to give love a thick earthy place, a warm place where it can grow without fear of uncommittal vows, and vows are proven by the tests they weather. So let’s go ahead and wrestle, put some teeth in the bonds of love, and afterwards give the blessing of a blanket and a warm, sunny place to rest. After laying the wrestled dough down to peace in a sunny corner, I treated myself to the same luxury and promptly took a nap. In time we rose and the resurrected body of dough was hidden in a secret room for 40 minutes to be crowned with toungues of flame.

If bread is the risen body of love crafted in a wrestle of living culture and heat, then butter is the Spirit of fat and cream poured out in joy for the benefit of all men. Bread is a mundane miracle often overlooked, but few things are as lavish and celebratory as a swathe of butter; nothing gleams and glitters like butter melting on the still-warm sacrificed body of risen flour. Bread is glorious in its simplicity, but Bread and Butter is a meaty extravagance; it is unnecessary in its celebration of something so mundane as a slice of bread. But then, anyone who has ever baked or enjoyed the fresh fruit of that labor would never think of bread as mundane.

Of course, this diversion is a study in flour of the values we wish to be embodied in this thing called Bread & Glitter: it is a vision of the cultural leavening of love which happens through the bonds of relationship crafted in a creative act. An act that is willing to get its hands dirty and sore in the wrestle, rest, and celebration of life.

In the most basic language, Bread & Glitter is a communal journal about art, faith, and culture, but if we dare to address such universal topics we address them with a parochial voice. Bread & Glitter is not founded on an academic ideal or an economic venture, but a communal reality: we are real people living our real lives together and wrestling with the real issues of our age. There are many better-studied writers and thinkers who dwell on these things (and we will gladly point you in their direction) but great ideas do not only affect great men and art, faith, and culture are as timely and concrete as they are timeless and abstract. Like the flour, water, and yeast of my bread rising there on the counter, these three herculean forces of human history are quotidian marvels; as common as the grass beneath our feet, and yet, like all true orthodox things, are also sacred paths of mystery, fearful wonder, and glory. As Aragorn spoke with the agnostic Eomer,

‘ Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight? ‘
‘ A man may do both, For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time. The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day! ’

This is the atmosphere we wish to exemplify in the work of Bread & Glitter; this marriage—or affectionate wrestle—between the transcendental and tangible, the humble and grandiose, and the mysterious and the simply known. This atmosphere is not something we need to conjure up like some extraterrestrial dream for this reality of incarnation and integration is something inherit in all human life. We are all the tempered alloy of our many various hopes, wounds, dreams, and deeds and if we allow the tempering of our lives to go unexamined then there is no knowing whether we will be facing the giants of our time with a king’s sword or a straw cudgel.

If art, faith, and culture are worth fighting for and worth saving it is because they are worth celebrating, and if they are worth celebrating then they are worth celebrating together. So, we desire to promote cultural stewardship in local community and generative creativity, believing that artistic excellence in the context of close relationships is able to exemplify the world as it ought to be.

From this place, we desire to champion those among us who write, act, and create in the spirit of a hopeful wrestle with the deep things of life and by doing so shed a light to guide the way forward. To put it more simply, we want to celebrate the virtue of life well lived. But if we aim for artistic excellence, it is not a celebrity morality of art; no action of love, joy, and beauty, however small, is insignificant. Small relational gestures in a creative act is the yeast of life. Yeast has the power to bring a lightness, shape, and flavor but it must be kneaded through the whole loaf for the bread to rise. If we practice perfectionism in the art of our lives we only keep the yeast segregated on it’s high shelf, and yeast left alone by itself will not grow, it needs the grist and grit of dough for it’s power to be made evident.

This is what we would like to be the invitation of Bread & Glitter: to enter into the bonds of relationships with others in the journey of wrestling with the virtues of truth, beauty, and love in a world that often acts as if these are alien concepts. By entering this wrestle alongside others and celebrating the creative work done in this spirit, a community can become the living monument of cultural nobility. We need others at our side if we are to challenge the ghosts in our cultural machine for culture is lived in community. In the midst of attempting to wrestle with deep, profound, challenging issues we cannot forget to stop to rejoice in the small acts goodness in the world and in the joys of others.

So come and join us, eat your daily bread, shake glitter over the things of life that have grown dull, and share life on the table of friendship. A practice of celebration in the arts and culture holds the power to be the articulation of love. Do not hold back in fear of being un-practiced, but throw your hand deep into the dough of life. Kneading out raw dough is an exquisite act but it is not sophisticated, the dough will teach you over time how to handle it in love and dexterity but all it requires from you at the outset is a willingness to give it an energetic wrestle with warm hands and a jovial heart. Clumsy affection is greater than elegant disregard, but excellence in love is more precious than all.

J.R.MYSZKA