Sunday, December 28, 2008

 

Memories


Greg Laden, in his end of the year reveries, is reviving Crackergate. Okay, I thought PZ was wrong in obtaining and disposing of the Communion host the way he did but what really interests me is this from Greg, who reveals that he is an erstwhile altar boy:

PZ intones "It's a cracker!" But you know, it's not a cracker. It's a flat dried up piece of bready stuff. Crackers are round and brown and have a little salt. This thing is not a cracker. Too chewy.

Chewy? Where was his church getting its wafers from? For as long as I was forced to undergo that ritual the hosts were ephemeral slices of library paste that melted at the first touch of saliva and promptly stuck to the roof of your mouth. Youthful speculation was that its inevitable resting place involved a minor miracle in the form of the host floating from your tongue upwards. And more tongue effort was required to dislodge it from its perch than that icon of mouth roof gumminess: peanut butter coated Wonder Bread.

One of us is having tricks played on us by our memories.
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Comments:
I dunno about all this ritual devouring of Christ's body and drinking his blood. Some serious overtones of cannibalism and vampirism there.
 
That is, I think, just a medieval essentialist gloss on a simple ceremony of rememberance.

But it always seemed icky.
 
All I remember was that the wafer was a tasteless piece of cardboard and the wine was crap. Of course, that was an Anglican service, Catholic MMV. The rumour was that C of E vicars were supposed to serve up quite a decent sherry if you called in to see them, perhaps in compensation, but I never put that one to the test.
 
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