day 11 - turning my stomach

setback with this flu today, doesn't feel like anything happened that is even worth writing about... have been struggling lately with scripture i guess. i read "next" in whatever place i have chosen in the bible before bed. have done it for over 12 years, every night. it's been a really good spiritual discipline and i am amazed that it has, day by day, connected the dots all the way back to the day i began my abstinence.

i don't know if other people in recovery are superstitious, but if i was, which i don't think i would word it that way, but if i was i have wondered if it was that sitting on the edge of my bed every night reading "next" is what has kept me going. once i finish a book in the bible i pick another, doesn't have to follow. i am in isaiah right now. should reading the bible kill your faith?

i don't think that it should. i mean i have devoted myself to this, i have a bachelors degree in biblical studies... but for the life of me i am so done with slaughtering people groups to protect another, war, punishment and what seems to me to be spite. i know it's not, in my head, but as i read it i cannot for the life of me understand why it all came together like this... i would have at least written about it differently.

i am so still there with jesus, but this old testament stuff, even the gushy parts of isaiah seem to turn my stomach right now. could just be the phase i'm in, but i honestly look at it like it's the punishment of my day now instead of something keeping me on track.

i would just do it so differently. so many things that could have helped us put things together in a better way just seem to be left out, and we've got so much of what seems to me to be total crap left in... again, probably just where i'm at in the winter of my discontent - but really? is this the best that could have been done? i have done a deconstruction and had my second naivete and maybe that's over, i don't know... i just feel like i need to rip some pages out to keep going...

bible college wisdom taught me that if we can imagine god that is proof for his existence - so can i take that one step further? i have a really good imagination - and my imagination doesn't include genocide as part of gods plan. i don't expect him to stop it like some people do to make sense of god, i get that evil is evil - but for some reason i do expect that he wouldn't need to make it a plan to protect his favorites.

the god i imagine has so much more creativity and problem solving skills - and is a much better writer. still totally down with jesus, even orthodox on that front, but this old testament stuff is just making things worse and not better somehow.

if i was going to leave my followers sacred texts they would be filled with life and light and stories about people doing it right. i just am not getting it anymore i guess. it just keeps turning my stomach.

togenberg you made my day!

just wanted you to know togenberg that opening up my email box today and seeing the FIVE comments from you on my blog just MADE MY DAY! thank you! i tried to follow your name to a blog but it's restricted and just in case you make it back here i wanted you to know that i really appreciated your kind words and questions. i'll do my best to respond, nobody leaves comments like those anymore and they are so encouraging to me, just wanted to say thank you!

how is jesus like bread?

it has been far too long since i have sat here with time, without interruption and with the level of emotion and depth of thought i have here today. i have put so much into this for the past couple of weeks. like i said in the posts below, this just will not let me go. i know there is a key here that will unlock something for me that i have yet to understand.

as a compulsive overeater i have found/find comfort, safety, friendship, solace, energy, consolation and satisfaction in food. it is a sick, twisted relationship that is broken at it's most basic level. food for me has been used to replace or fill those broken things in me and my world that little else could seem to come close to. and no other food for me more than bread. i have given up chocolate for almost 8 years now, and added sugar for probably about 5, but a life without bread is unimaginable for me. it's not about the carbs (well, not only about the carbs) or the affect this has on my physical body because there is something deeply emotional about this that i just can't seem to figure out how this all weaves together.

comparing jesus, not communion, the lords supper or the eucharist to bread just pulled at me like little else. i knew that there was a deeper truth here that i wasn't understanding. i'm not sure i do even yet, but i'm praying that as i type things become more real and i am given a clearer understanding of why this is so 'elemental' for me.

to those who commented and posted, thank you - your thoughts are precious to me, your involvement so meaningful. and it has helped me think in ways and from perspectives i had not considered. i have always stumbled through my thoughts on 'communion' because it consists of two substances that my addictive nature is wary of. bread and wine. i have never been an active alcoholic, but know that if given the chance to make that choice i would abuse alcohol in the same way i can abuse food. why then did god pick these two addictive elements to remember him?

the nature of the communion elements - bread and wine - is truly transformational - such simple, basic ingredients - grain and grapes - squished, ground and pulverized into something they were not before - reduced to their most primitive state and then such small efforts and time turn them miraculously into something they were not before. and such lovely things. a loaf of bread, a jug of wine and thou... is this not what the best of life is made of?

erin brought up the idea of the bread coming from the grain being ground - i began to think that bread cannot be bread without violence and transformation. the mortar and pestle crushing, the muscles kneading, the deep heat of the oven baking - you can smell it, can't you? is there a better smell in the world? maybe the top of a baby's head, but little else can compare. your mouth begins to water. your stomach begins to growl. butter, homemade jam or peanut butter? what can compare?

how is jesus like bread? how can i find such mouth-watering satisfaction in the person of christ? i have been pondering this for days. i wrote above "comfort, safety, friendship, solace, energy, consolation and satisfaction in food jesus." that is true in my head, but in my heart i know it to be different. i would rather turn to a buttered piece of bread in an emotional crisis than i would to turn to prayer. i live this out. if prayer, regular prayer, not the sublime moments i have from time to time, filled me like this i wouldn't be where i am. how do i make the true, real transition from that first bite to finding these things truly in jesus?

being empty physically is terrifying for me sometimes. the absence of physical form of jesus being like bread just doesn't seem to fill the void like chewing bread does. the picture hope used of using wonder bread to fill the cracks in our selves was so powerful for me. it was so visual. i loathe wonder bread - sliced white processed bread isn't ever what i'm looking for - i want the loaf, the kind you have to saw through - that's the real thing that does it for me - but i know most of my childhood was patched up with wonder bread. but the missing link memory isn't there yet.

i made the emotional connection to many of the binge foods i have struggled with in the past - understanding why a certain food is so powerful helps me so much. raw cookie dough was an instant link to my maternal grandmother. when she came to visit things at home were good - my parents were attentive, grandma was so comforting - i associated that feeling with that gross, disgusting binge food. i ate more raw eggs and butter in a month than should ever be consumed in a lifetime. when i understood this i was able to set it aside. i can have those wonderful memories and understand them now without needing the food to make me feel. i can't seem to find that link with bread yet.

my mom didn't make bread, i don't think i can associate it with anything yet, but i know it's there - and i know that when i am able to understand it more fully it will have less power over me. so how is jesus like bread?

tying communion into this complicates it for me - i know that is a huge part, but i think the metaphor is bigger than just communion. he never said "i am the wine of life" - but he did say, apart from communion:

John 6:48-51 - "I am the Bread of Life. Your ancestors ate the manna bread in the desert and died. But now here is Bread that truly comes down out of heaven. Anyone eating this Bread will not die, ever. I am the Bread-living Bread!-who came down out of heaven. Anyone who eats this Bread will live-and forever! The Bread that I present to the world so that it can eat and live is myself, this flesh-and-blood self."

i think that this plays into some bad theology that i need to re-form. the "get out of jail free" kind of christianity i was raised with concerned itself only with conversion and the glory of heaven one day - and the in-between real life and kingdom were non-existent. our real lives didn't start until heaven. we were just putting in time and making more converts, just dying to have that rapture and get on with it already. i now believe that this 'live-and forever!' means NOW, HERE AND NOW.

so how is this 'bread of life' giving me life today? how can it satisfy me at the most basic of times when i am feeling exposed or unsafe? it just doesn't seem to comfort me like a mouthful of buttered bread. (just being completely honest here). dang. i had hoped that by typing it would all magically fall into place. i still don't get it - it still feels just a tad beyond the reach of my fingers - but i'm sitting in the tension of not knowing. of not fully understanding yet.

erin also mentioned that "'Aysh' is the Arabic word for both bread and life." and patchouli reminded me that "Christ as bread--it reminds me of manna in the desert. Pure, daily, just right to nourish us--and we have taken that and turned it into "Wonder Bread" filling, but without the nourishment. I want manna from Heaven."

manna is part of this too - and it is LIFE - and it is trans-cultural. provision is there if i take it, i know. i can be full without being stuffed, but somehow it just doesn't seem to translate yet. manna for the day. too much taken gets moldy the next day. just for today... enough.

jesus goes on to say:

John 6:53-58 "But Jesus didn't give an inch. "Only insofar as you eat and drink flesh and blood, the flesh and blood of the Son of Man, do you have life within you. The one who brings a hearty appetite to this eating and drinking has eternal life and will be fit and ready for the Final Day. My flesh is real food and my blood is real drink. By eating my flesh and drinking my blood you enter into me and I into you. In the same way that the fully alive Father sent me here and I live because of him, so the one who makes a meal of me lives because of me. This is the Bread from heaven. Your ancestors ate bread and later died. Whoever eats this Bread will live always."

a hearty appetite - who more than the alcoholic and compulsive overeater has this hearty appetite? i know it is meant to be filled and satiated with far more than our drugs of our choice though. i know this is settling for bait instead of a feast. i'm tired of bait. i loathe the counterfeit. i long for the "meal of christ" he speaks of here. i just can't seem to truly find it's equal in this temporary place in between.

the satisfaction and completion i long for hasn't yet been found in communion with christ. all that is within me wants it to be true, but i can't honestly say that i'm there yet. and i feel so inadequate - why? am i fundamentally discontent? insatiable? i truly do not know. i pray it is just that my understanding is lacking. that the penny hasn't dropped yet. that what seems just out of my reach will one day be grasped. until then i will be sitting with this, living in the tension and begging for god to make this real and understandable to me.

my not-yet-met friend steve tells of a sacred communion time here (thank you steve, this still makes me tear up when i think about it): Thoughts on Commuion, Jesus as Bread

discuss amongst yourselves - part deux

the post i was hoping to do today will have to wait as i have been asked to make an emergency run to "the big city" airport to pick up a couple who didn't make their connector flight yesterday. this "how is jesus like bread" thing is holding me tight and will not let go.

i was honored yesterday to be a part of our communion service at church, impromtu as the woman who bakes the bread got her wires crossed and showed up with the lovely homemade loaves yesterday instead of next week. i was able to stand in front of the congreation and offer the body of christ broken for you to each who came forward. this is unfolding so beautifully for me.

i want to share some things left in the comments to spur on more thoughts (please participate - any and all thoughts, even weird or negative ones will help me here) on this subject. i know this is a lot bigger for me than just communion - and it's working it's way into so many areas of my life - so even the most random thought might be a missing link in this process, so please (PLEASE) comment away.

here's what sarah louise had to say:

I remember in college being at a party and a guy was dressed up and his costume was saying how Christians are vampires because they drink Jesus' blood and eat his flesh. I will never forget that, til the day I die.

When I was Catholic (for about a year) I couldn't get past that the bread "really" was Jesus. I prefer the Presbyterian view that it's "in memory of Him" but that it brings us closer in communion with Him.

and brother tadhg:

Interestingly, in current Jewish passover feasts, bread is broken in three and the second portion is hidden until a ransom is paid or it is discovered by the least in the family - which for believers symbolises the 2nd person of the trinity once hidden and now revealed.

and erin writes:

-bread seems to be one food that has been common in all cultures. Ever present. Nourishing. Sustaining.
-thinking of bread broken, I tend to think of the first breaking: of wheat broken to make flour. Makes me think of what it may have been like for Jesus to take human form.
-this may be stretching things, but I think of Jesus as Whole Wheat or a really dark Rye. Broken, but not lesser. We want a sliced White Bread Jesus. Easy to digest, flavourless really, but convenient.

thanks each of you who participated, this has helped me a lot - and i won't be able to really post on this until at least wednesday, probably thursday - so i've got a long trip in the car today, and days to keep thinking about it - so please add your thoughts!

discuss amongst yourselves

remember coffee talk with linda richman on snl? mike myers in drag with those buttuh-like nails all verklempt over bah-bra?

well, i am pondering a question in my daily ready "praying with jesus" (eugene peterson) and i can't get it out of my head - so i want your take on this please. i know it's tied into my eating and holds keys that i can't wrap my head around. i'd love to hear your thoughts as i put my own together on this. i'll give you a topic...

how is jesus like bread? discuss amongst yourselves...

give me a call 555-4444, we'll talk, no big whoop.