Ecology of Eatin' (What a clever pun!)

 

    In Marriage Supper of the Lamb, Robert Farrar Capon writes that "Man's real work is to look at the things of the world and to love them for what they are. That is, after all, what God does, and man was not made in God’s image for nothing. The fruits of his attention can be seen in all the arts, crafts, and sciences. It can cost him time and effort, but it pays handsomely" (pg. 19). Therefore, I must do. That is, I must look at the things of the world and see if Capon is right. Is this my work? 

     I love food! I hardly look at it though. When I look at a piece of bread, I see something which can sustain me. All eating involves a series of transformative acts from the harvesting, cleaning, cooking, eating, to the digestion. The thing presenting itself to me is in flux, and I am as well. Through the given food, my ultimate flux (death) is postponed for a time. Life from death. When we share a meal we share in a recognition of our mortality and the frailty which we flee from day by day. Are we often conscious of that? The one who eats is the mortal; ever running an absurd race from a transformation of energy so powerful the self the body cannot survive (death). Death is inescapable, and if eating is done without memetno mori, it is a delusion. But why be afraid? Chewing each piece of food, I should be aware that what I am doing delays the inevitable and that, having taken another being out of the world, I ought to make the most of the given energy. Eating is an existential exercise, where I proclaim my right to be, and where communities proclaim their right to exist in a particular ecosystem not as observers, but as a door through which life passes and is transformed forever. 

    In the Orthodox church it is taught that the Eucharist is truly the body and blood of Christ. There is no need to explain how, for it is a Holy Mystery. In the eating of His most precious Body and Blood, I proclaim my necessity of being in communion with Other. I must exist in community with others and with the great Other who offers Himself to me. Life from death. Having proclaimed once and for all that the enemy (death) is defeated, Christ offers me to participate in divine Life: His Life. This is transformative; we call it 'Theosis,' whereby the believer is made into the likeness of God. Transformed in time and place by coming into contact with God's flesh, that is, something I can touch, feel, and taste. My being in the world, in an ecosystem, in a community is proclaimed not as an isolated act of seeking another piece of energy to delay the inevitable (death) but a triumphant victory, where my existence is imbued with the infinite meaning of becoming like Beauty, Love, and Truth, Whom I can commune with. These are not concepts. Truth is a person, Who became incarnate in the world: His name is Jesus Christ. This is a Christian meditation on the profundity of eating. The table is set by the Lamb Himself and His flock, from all corners of the world, will come to dine. 

 

Receive the Body of Christ, 

Taste the Fountain of Immortality, 

Alleluia!  

 -Communion Hymn 

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