comic by Ken Fager
After my family stopped attending Catholic mass regularly and started frequenting a Presbyterian church, I discovered the absolute delight of “Communion Sundays,” which were only once a month. I loved the tiny little plastic cups passed around in fitted brass plates. After sipping up the grape juice, I would do the classy and mature thing by sticking my tongue into the cup to get every last drop from the bottom. I’d suction it onto my tongue, waggle it around, and make silly faces at my friends until an adult noticed and I had to busy myself with the bulletin or something.
My favorite part of Communion Sunday was the bread. I loved that bread. I sometimes called it “3-D Jesus” because it was in a small cubed form instead of the flat, bland wafers we used to dissolve on our tongues at mass. No crackers or matzo here, just soft cubes of a dead guy.
The best thing about this bread was its taste: it was sweet like buttered honey and it fairly melted into your teeth like a soft candy. Jesus tasted damn good. I once tried to take more bread from the passing plate, but I felt ashamed that someone might see, so I contented myself with just one tiny square of Jesus.
Now that it’s not even symbolically holy and I still remember the scrumptious taste of that bread on my tongue, I very much want to eat it again—but in mach larger quantities. Did they buy it or bake it? Is this a common communion food among protestant churches? I’ve googled “sweet communion bread recipe” and not come up with anything particularly enticing.
If you’re out there, Jesusbread baker, can you give me your recipe? I want some with a little honey on top. Like, now. I’m starving.
Photo by VannaGocaraRupa
I can’t believe I’m saying this: I watched Oprah tonight, and it connected with me.
I can be sarcastic or silly about my usual opinions towards Oprah Winfrey’s TV talk show, but instead I need to write out my thoughts before I push them aside in favor of something more numbing, more comfortable. The show’s topic–our relationships with food and what it means on a deeper level–is a springboard into the deep end of a pool so uncomfortable for me that I threw away my bathing suit and drained the water. I don’t even want to go near this topic on a serious level because of how it makes me feel.
But I’m going to anyway.I consider this post just for me and my reflection, but I wanted it public in case someone else knows what this is like.
Tonight’s episode of Oprah featured author Geneen Roth and her newest book Women Food and God: An Unexpected Path to Almost Everything. I know, I know–it says “God” and because of that I’m supposed to wail and snark about how silly that is. Well I say forget it! “God” as it is called in the title, is speaking about the deep awe in a “bigger life” and connection we feel that goes beyond the cares of our daily grind. And as a secular person, even I can get behind that. I know how it feels to be content in the moment, amazed, and fulfilled. That’s what Roth is calling “god”.
Women Food and God is about addressing the deeper reasons why women (and men) reach for food when they’re not hungry, and what those actions reveal about our core beliefs about ourselves. This is the topic I threw away a swimsuit to avoid.
My Relationship with Food
Right before I started on this post, I crumpled up some used fast food wrappers I’d left on my desk after dinner and stuffed a finished two litre bottle of Pepsi (the sugary kind which I don’t like, but I drank “for the team” to get it out of the house) in the recycling bin. This is a perfect illustration of my worst eating habits.
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