[Sca-cooks] RE: Cannibalism , ritualistic or otherwise

[Phlip]

Ene bichizh ogsen baina shuu...

> Ok, leaving the transubstantiation/cannibalism issue aside for the moment,
> how about the spiritual aspects of sharing the wine and bread?  Going back
> to the Roman and Greek gods and religious observances, eating the grain
and
> drinking the product of the vine is in effect eating the body of the gods
as
> they are manifested in the fruits of the field and vinyard.  Surely that
> figured into the symbology of the Christ's words, they were mostly all
> Romans, after all.
> So what about focusing on the spirituality of the foods themselves?
> Christianna

I think, for them, this was deeply important, even more important than for
those of us today who believe the wine and bread is transformed into God's
flesh and blood. I think bread and wine were far more symbolic to them of
their bond with God, simply because bread and wine were considered the
necessities for a civilized person to eat, at least among the Mediterranean
peoples who were responsible for the development of the early Catholic
Church. I know it's difficult for us to believe, in the days of Wonderbread
and those plastic communion disks ;-) but bread used to make up a very
substantial part of a person's diet- while we may think of a diet of bread
and water as very boring, its usage as a punishment, or occasionally the
sole means of sustenance during a strict fast indicates that bread was
considered a bare necessity to survive.

Wine, OTOH wasn't a necessity, any more than coffee is a necessity for many
moderns, but trying to do without it would leave the abstainer feeling
extremely deprived. There was a mystique to wine, that I feel that we, with
options ranging from canoe beer to everclear (not to mention other
interesting ...substances) have lost- probably because we're so far away
from the land, not least of which is its intoxicating aspect.

Think about it- both substances undergo a rather mysterious transformation,
thanks to yeast. In the case of bread, a mess of soggy flour, resembling
mud, more than anything else, transforms into a tasty and sustaining food,
while the juice of an innocuous fruit, given some time (and more yeasty
beasties) can become a quite different and intoxicating beverage. Doesn't it
make sense that an everyday mystery like this might be matched with a
greater Mystery, one's interaction with Deity, however one perceives
him/her/it/them?

And, for all the descriptions of Humanity, the tool-using animal, the
thinking animal, etc, if nothing else, Humanity is the Metaphorical animal.
A critter, looking at bread and wine sees food- a human sees Deity. Dunno
how you can be more metaphorical, or spiritual than that ;-)

Saint Phlip,
CoD

"When in doubt, heat it up and hit it with a hammer."
 Blacksmith's credo.

 If it walks like a duck, and quacks like a duck, it is probably not a
cat.

Never a horse that cain't be rode,
And never a rider who cain't be throwed....




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