Wednesday, October 12, 2011

THE BETTER TO EAT YOU WITH MY DEAR

It was dangerous for me to think about kissing. While enjoyable in my dating years, if I thought about it too much, it seemed kind of bizarre to me (sometimes I think too much.) Why is it that pressing this part of the body together – this thing we eat and talk with – be so natural and pleasurable? I think Grandma Piat (not my real grandmother – but a next-door-neighbor who fulfilled the role from time to time) gave me a clue when she looked at a new grandchild. She said, “You are so cute I could just gobble you up!” Maybe that it what it is. We obviously cannot consume the other person but we can do the next best thing. (Stick with me.)

Think of a baby and how the baby gets to know the world around him. He is always sticking the new thing he finds in his mouth. Steve Jobs who is late of our company said of his products that he wanted to make them so good that people would want to lick them.

Okay – ewe – but he makes a point. When we really love something, don’t we have an instinct to make it a part of ourselves? We can own it, put our mark on it, but one of the most primitive yet satisfying ways of accomplishing this is to eat it. When I see futuristic shows about how one might be able to eat a whole meal by swallowing a pill I think, “Keep me in these dark ages where I have to see a savory steak, smell it, get its grease on my fingers (I’m a sloppy eater), chew and taste it, and feel the satisfaction of swallowing it. You have your pill and your Star Trek ride across the universe.”

Eating is so very satisfying. Done moderately well it is also good for us. “You become what you eat,” we are told. So then is it not interesting that we have a God that invites us to eat of His Body and Blood?

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