In the Breaking of the Bread

:The Emergence of Cognition

cognition: n: the mental process of knowing. (The Amer. Heritage Dictionary)

“… he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him…” (Luke 24:30-31; New International Version)


This is taken from the story on the road to Emmaus at the ending of the Gospel of Luke. Several followers of Jesus are mentally lost and uncertain of the future after his death. They are walking along as evening approaches and a stranger passes by. It is getting dark. They invite him to join them for dinner. He gave the typical Jewish blessing at the start of the dinner and broke the bread.
The sculpture shows this process of emergence through raw and rough chiseled alabaster at the base evolving to a more chiseled round bread being broken by very highly polished hands that emerge from the stone. Its breaking divides the hemispheres as in the human brain and leaves a cross on top tying the two concepts together.