I have been thinking a lot about what makes up a human body. We are in the time of Lent, when we should be thinking about faith, and thinking about how better to honor God.
In the Episcopal Eucharist, which honors Christ’s sacrifice on his last night on earth, we receive the sacraments of bread and wine while the priest says these words: “This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
I was thinking about that this morning as I ate my non-holy scrambled eggs.
“This is my blood which was shed for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”
We eat the wafer and we drink the wine, and we receive Christ into our bodies. [For a more complete explanation, check out this page.]
This is what I personally believe: we should fill ourselves with everything Christ represents, every time we put food into our mouths. We should fill ourselves with love. We should fill ourselves with forgiveness. We should fill ourselves with tolerance.
We are what we eat. It may sound simplistic but those words represent so much more. We are made from the water that falls from heaven. We are made from the earth that nurtures the plants. We are made from the bodies of animals who are sacrificed for our sustenance.
Eating may seem mundane or even gross, but it’s so much more than that. We are part of the land. We are sustained by the place where we live and the people who raise our food. This is not mundane. This is profound, and even sacred.
Should we eat food that comes from food factories? Should we fill ourselves with fruits and vegetables that have been forced to grow, with a lot of help from science?
Should we fill our bodies with “foods” like fruit rollups, or should we eat fruit?
I think we need to eat real fruit, grown from water and sunshine and the miracle.
Yes, you read that right. I used the “M” word.
Life is a miracle.
What we sustain our lives with becomes part of our bodies. Our bodies are proof that miracles exist, and they occur every day.
Science has its limits. A doctor can add a sperm to an egg and a zygote may result. What truly starts life, though? I don’t think they really know that. For all the knowledge and science we have, we really don’t know that spark that ignites a new soul. Only God really knows how that miracle occurs.
I have been thinking a lot about how to renew myself. Easter is a time of promise and renewal, and it’s not far away.
Filling my body with Love sounds like a fine way to renew it.
Eating foods grown by small farmers who love what they do, and who nurture their crops sounds like a good recipe. One day, when I can get it, I want to be able to fill myself with meat that was raised by farmers who cared for their animals and who slaughtered them humanely, like my friend Jon Jackson over at Comfort Farms.
We are what we eat.
Let’s choose to become Love. Let’s choose to fill ourselves with real food, and by doing so honor God, honor our bodies, honor our parents who raised and nurtured us, and honor the small farmers who try to feed us the right way.
Let’s fill ourselves with miracles.
Just as a postscript - my friend Stacy over at Down South House and Home invited me to write a guest blog, and I was delighted to do so. Check it out here: LINK.
