Jesus has two major metaphors for himself-Bread and Water: "Bread of Life" and "Living Water." For the Christian, the #1 soul food is bread and water. What makes bread come alive, what turns juice into wine, is YEAST.

There is a Kudzu cartoon that shows the preacher reading from the pulpit the Lord's Prayer: "Give us this day our daily....low-fat, low-cholesterol, salt-free bread ..." The last frame has him saying to himself, "I hate these modern translations."

Despite such modern translations, despite new diet fads, exercise machines, doctors' warnings and our own resolve, every year we are getting fatter and fatter. The percentage of adults who qualify as "overweight" (20 pounds over the established guidelines) has been steadily climbing for the last several decades and now weighs in a…