Bread and Roses
For several years now, I’ve made it a point to watch the movie Pride at least once a year. For those of you who are unfamiliar, Pride is a movie about the events of the coal miners’ strike in the United Kingdom in 1984-1985. It centers on a group of young gay and lesbian activists based in London, who recognize that the oppression they endure at the hands of police, politicians, and the public is not so different from what the striking coal miners endure. It tells the story of how this group of activists became stalwart fundraisers and organizers on behalf of those on strike—collecting loose change in plastic buckets on street corners to send direct aid to the miners and their families. As part of living out this recognition of shared struggle, the gay and lesbian activists end up travelling from the City of London, where there is relative safety in the midst of a lively LGBT scene, to a tiny village in the South of Wales where everyone is directly impacted by the strike. I won’t spoil too much, because it really is a beautiful movie and I highly recommend it. But there is one scene that never fails to bring me to tears…ok, there are many scenes that never fail to bring me to tears, but one in particular that I want to lift up today. Once the activist group, named Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners, has settled in a bit and built some strong relationships with folks in the village, there comes a time when everyone is sitting together in the union hall, drinking and talking together. After the leader of the activist group stands up to declare his intention to continue and amplify the group’s support for the miners, a young woman from the village stands up and begins to sing a well-known song in the labor movement. The scene goes on, and becomes more and more powerful as more voices from the crowd join in with each verse until everyone in the room is singing together.
The song that they sing in this scene is called “Bread and Roses.” While the origin of this pairing of bread and roses together is uncertain, its modern usage in organizing movements probably began around 1910, when a woman named Helen Todd used it while advocating for women’s suffrage and better conditions for working class women in Chicago and California. It was quickly picked up by women organizers across the country. The lyrics of the song that they sing in Pride come from a poem that was inspired by the work of the suffrage and labor movements, written by James Oppenheim. The words to the song go: “As we go marching, marching, in the beauty of the day/A million darkened kitchens, a thousand mill-lofts gray/Are touched with all the radiance that a sudden sun discloses/For the people hear us singing, "Bread and Roses, Bread and Roses." As we go marching, marching, we battle, too, for men/For they are women's children and we mother them again/Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes/Hearts starve as well as bodies: Give us Bread, but give us Roses. As we go marching, marching, unnumbered women dead/Go crying through our singing their ancient song of Bread/Small art and love and beauty their trudging spirits knew/Yes, it is Bread we fight for—but we fight for Roses, too.” Each line of this poem, each verse of this song, calls us back again and again to the stance, to the truth, that simply not starving is not the same as living into the fullness of life. That, as labor and women’s rights advocate Rose Schneiderman put it, living and existing are not the same thing. Each line, as it is sung, points us to the truth that is summarized by Jesus in this gospel passage, that “one does not live by bread alone.”
The season of Lent is a time of preparation, a time of orienting ourselves towards the resurrection life that dawns at Easter. Throughout this season, we ought to consider what the fullness of this resurrection life looks like. In our Thursday Lunch Group this past week (shameless plug), it was pointed out that the line in this passage that tells us how hungry Jesus was after not eating for several weeks, while it may seem obvious, is an important reminder of Jesus’ humanity. It is a reminder that Jesus needs to eat, although with all the eating Jesus does throughout the gospels, I’m not sure how we could really forget. It’s a reminder that Jesus has human needs and human desires and human pains. And, we can argue based on his response to the Tempter, he probably understood that the fullness of human life cannot be achieved simply by sustaining our bodies alone. He knows because of his humanity, that the fullness of life comes when our basic needs are met, but also when we are able to engage with the ways in which God speaks to us in our lives. Through visual arts and performing arts, through playing and listening to music, through making people laugh and being made to laugh. Through cooking and enjoying food, not only as sustenance, but as art. He knows that the fullness of life comes when we are enabled to listen to God, in Creation and in one another, as part of the Beloved Community. This is the food that nourishes us beyond just the point of filling our bellies, but to the satisfaction of our souls. It is the food that can indeed sustain us, even when bread is scarce, and bodies are starved.
This is the sustenance that was consumed by Jewish musicians in concentration camps, who wrote and performed music even as they were held captive in brutal violence. This is the sustenance that fed blues artists, that reverberates through jazz clubs and concert halls, that brings us to tears when we watch a performance or a movie, even when we’ve seen it a dozen times or more. This is the sustenance that feeds immigrant communities, through the music and dance and language that comes from home, which is passed down from generation to generation. This is the sustenance that feeds queer communities, by poems and symbols, by subversive music and norm-defying art. Our being fed, our living of life to the fullest, comes from more than simply satisfying our basic needs. One does not live by bread alone, but by bread and roses—by the myriad ways in which we encounter God, and the multitudes of ways in which God speaks to each of us. And so it becomes our responsibility, our summons as Easter People, to ensure that we not only find roses for ourselves, but that we offer others their roses as well. It is our call, as Easter People, to engage with the arts, whether that be fan art or the symphonies of Gustav Holst (speaking of art that makes me cry). Whether we speak the language or can hear the voice of God speaking to us or not. It is our call, as Easter People, to live into the fullness of life by bread and roses—and to ensure that others may have their bodies and spirits fed, as well. To ensure that each of us has the opportunity to practice the arts, to find passion and beauty and whimsy and rest and the voice of the divine speaking life into souls wearied by death.
Lent is a season of preparation and piety. It may seem like I am preaching indulgence in the midst of a season of fasting, but I promise I’m not. Bread and roses is not a call for excess, it’s not a call for us to gorge ourselves, to live to some hedonistic extreme. It’s not about some never-ending quest for more and more or some insatiable desire to have everything. Rather, it is a statement of humility, of acknowledging our human need for food, but also our human need for something more. Our preparation, this Lenten season, ought to point us towards that Easter morning, towards that triumph over the sting of death that each of us longs for. Part of that triumph is living into the fullness of life. That is the liberation that we experience here on Earth—liberation from the hunger that plagues our bodies and that which plagues our hearts. As we journey onward, may we listen for where God is speaking to us out in the world. May we seek out that which gives us life, that which feeds us until our hearts are satisfied. May we make it so that others may do the same. We cannot live by bread alone. Give us bread, but give us roses, too. Amen.