THIS IS MY BODY
In a dream this morning I was in some kind of outdoor classroom and the leader asked me to think of a food I liked. I said spaghetti. Then he asked me to close my eyes and imagine eating it and tell the class the word that came to mind. I shut my eyes and imagined the taste of spaghetti and tears came to my eyes. I said the word was, "family." I said, "There might be a better word, but I don't know how to say it." One of the other students said, "It tickled your Is." I laughed and said, "Yeah, that's a good way to put it."
When I woke up and remembered the tears that were elicited by the taste of spaghetti in my dream, I thought of Matthew 26:26: "Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, "Take and eat; this is my body."
I know that Catholics take these words quite literally. They believe that the bread, taken at mass, is the actual body of Christ. I also take these words literally, as more than mere metaphor, but want to apply them to all food, and most especially to food that is delicious, like spaghetti, eaten in communion with family and friends. God (or Love, or Spirit, or whatever you want to call It) is in the food we eat. The proof of this, to me, is in those mysterious tears that welled up in my dream.
