BODY AND BLOOD

 

 

The title of my thoughts for today is, “Body and Blood.”

 

This will be a poem, poetic, the me that’s me – some of the time.

 

Yesterday I sat back and said, “I have a conference to give tomorrow.”

 

Next. I asked, “What is there to talk about – or wonder about?

 

“What is needed?  What would be helpful? Where are the priests who will be here tomorrow?  What’s on their mind?  How’s their health and their hearts?”

 

What do they hunger for?  What do they thirst for?

 

Hello!

 

Answers: I don’t know.

 

Should I talk about aging …. I’m almost 83 …. Should I talk about the country …. The world …. The church …. The still going on aftermath of the Corona Virus…. The Queen’s funeral …. Who, what, when, where, why, how?

 

For some reason, the first word that hit me was bread.

 

Give us this day our daily bread.

 

Next, I said to myself: “Bread and Wine – the body and blood of life – the body and blood of Christ.”

 

Then I began thinking: Life 101 – the liquid and the solid, the flow and the firm, the ocean and the shore, the river and the river bank, the bottle and the liquid inside.

 

Life – the known and the unknown – the  what has been and what will be next…?

 

Life – birth and death – birth day and death day – the numbers on our tombstone and death card – as well as the flow of birthday cards and cakes and presents – down and up – through the years.

 

Life: what’s the date on the package? Is there and expiration date?

 

Those wrinkles on my skin – especially on my arm – just before  my inner elbow - sometimes looks like script or numbers.

 

Life has the solid and the soft – the solid and the sag.

 

Life: the solid buildings we sit and sleep in, the ground we stand on – the roads – the highways, and streets we move  - and travel on like the flow of blood through our system. Sometimes we’re the blood and sometimes we’re like the vessels that hold it. Sometimes we’re in cars and traveling on rubber tires; sometimes we’re in shoes or bare feet.

 

Blood – liquid – flowing ….

 

Body – solid – the steady unnoticed.

 

Life: standing still in place – and movement from here to there.

 

Life: 101.

 

I began wondering about when did Jesus come up with the idea of giving his body and blood to us.

 

Great poem – not a bad idea – and it fits most of the time  - in our life.

 

Was he sitting at table or the place where he was eating – looking at bread – watching and seeing someone break bread and pass it around the table.

 

Some smiled and said, “Thanks!”

 

If anyone had some Greek in them – they might have heard the word  “thanks” sounding like “Eucharist” when someone was thanking  someone.  I don’t know the sound and derivations of Aramaic word for “thanks”.

 

Thank you – delicious bread. Thank God for bakers and bread makers.

 

Good bread  - solid leavened bread – the sending and shifting of the wonderful scent of bread around the room – people eating together – people being and becoming a body together – family, friends, marriages, communion, holy communion with each other.

Life.

 

Life: moments at a table.

 

Life: sometimes it feels like a banquet.

 

Life: filled with great gifts.

 

Not all the guests, the invited, show up.

 

They have other things on their plate….

 

Disciples – seeing the empty seats – might have gotten the idea to head for the highways and byways, the back roads and the hedge row and invite all in – the banquet needs to be filled.

 

Life: 101

 

Life: roaming on our roads – with food – bread and wine – sheep and salad - tomatoes and beans in our bellies – the miles of our life.

 

Life – alone and with others.

When did Jesus come up with the message and meaning of bread and wine?  How old was he when he figured that one out?

 

Did Jesus see and hear people drinking and laughing and enjoying wine together – toasting and clinking cups and chalices together?

 

Did he inwardly say: “Wonderful.  This is it. Life. This is what it’s all about?”

 

Did he stop into bakeries – or simply watch Mary – and Martha and Mary make bread?

 

Did Jesus do a lot of thinking and learning and listening to people while he walked around Nazareth and Capernaum.

 

Where did he get his sermons from?  Where do the preachers of today get theirs?

 

Did he ever meet the man born blind again – or that deaf guy he stuck his finger into his ear and healed – or the woman at the well?

 

How about Samaritans?   Did Jesus mean a few on the road to Jericho.

 

Did he stop to see grapes growing – being picked – being crushed – becoming wine.

 

Did he think: this is life – people grinding out a living – drop by drop – wow does wine look like blood at times – especially when people get cut.

 

Was the world he walked in – the marketplaces, the carpenter shops, the synagogues, the homes he visited – classrooms for him?

 

Did he see shepherds with sheep on their shoulders – and a smile on both their faces – the lost and the found?

 

Did he see fields of sheep and goats and did he wonder: how do they separate them?

 

Did he stop to check our soil and our  fields, wheat and weeds, good trees and bad, fig trees that were producing and those who were doing nothing?

 

Did he think about Mary and Joseph, Martha and Mary and Lazarus after he left them?

 

Why in the world did he choose bread and wine? Was it to tell people about the meaning of life – sacrifice – giving and receiving – that everyone is called to hold out their bodies to everyone else as they say: “This is my body. This is my blood. I’m giving me to thee. Take. Receive. Eat.”

 

Why in the world did he choose bread and wine?  Was it because food goes inside of me. The intimacy of food – sometimes. Sometimes minds are elsewhere during meals – where people are sitting – or when betrayal is taking place – or how many pieces of silver is so and so worth?

 

Did Jesus see his possible death on a cross – if and when he ever really told others what life is really about – the dying for others – the giving of our lives for others – the laying down and laying out of our time – no matter how many hours we’re in the vineyard.

 

Did Jesus see how tough forgiveness is – sometimes  when brothers won’t welcome brothers – back after they messed up – but parents will – and this makes one worse than the others?

 

They won’t even forgive once. Heck. Hell, Heaven, the difficulty of forgiving 7 times 7 times – 70 times if necessary.

 

The title of my poem is, “Body and Blood.”

 

Maybe it would have  better,  if I called it, “Bread and Wine.”

 

Either way: something to digest.