Consuming Communion



Image taken from http://www.cavanaghco.com/



This piece on the Killing the Budda website is a totally worthwhile read about the evolution (diminishment?) of Communion wafer production. It touches upon the corporation vs. the convent (read as WalMart vs. your local shop), specialty wafers for the gluten-intolerant (yay!), nasty marketing wars, and even the theology of the wafer vs. bread as Christ. Super interesting for the theologian in me. Also pretty interesting to consider as a Christian consumer of, um, Jesus in the sacrament of the Eucharist. Now to look into Eucharistic wine trends and the theo-ethical implications there--nothing really says blood-of-Christ quite like a full-bodied (pardon the pun!) Cabernet Sauvignon. No blanc about it.

Oh, Love

“Love doesn't just sit there like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, re-made all the time, made new.”
-Ursula K. Le Guin

I miss bread.

Big Breath! Advent, Week Two

My friend asked me what Advent is, he being a religion-less heathen. As if simply being a non-Christian weren't treacherous enough. Seriously though, his question brought me pause, as Advent also calls me to halt in the silence that is the inhale before the eruption of heralding angel voices singing, "Glory to the newborn King!" Oh Advent. Oh waiting. Oh patience, anticipation, anxiety attacks. Well, that last one isn't exactly part of the proper Advent season celebrated by Christians as we prepare for the birth of Christ on Christmas. But it was part of my second week of Advent. It's probably nothing, but as the days plunge into further darkness I find myself suffering from mysterious angst.

Last Sunday marked the second week of Advent, when we Catholics get to light two candles around the Advent wreath, the light and Christmas excitement building as we tumble towards December twenty-fifth. The day began as smooth and lazy as any Sunday might, but was pocked around one o'clock when my chest tightened, my pulse quickened, and the room with its walls and ceiling left me claustrophobic and panicked. Like any person enduring a panic attack might do, I began huffing exaggeratedly loud and helplessly waved my wrists as my tears started. Pathetic.

The freak moment passed and I shamelessly crawled into my bed for the rest of the afternoon thinking, "Am I really a crazy person?" Verdict? Yes, I totally am. But not because I have anxiety issues or food intolerances or even because I share way too much personal information on my insignificant blog that I make my friends and family read. No, that's not my crazy, that's just me. My crazy is that I remain a Roman Catholic--devout and practicing, more or less--despite all the guilt and daddy issues and anger this belief ignites in me. (More on all that at some later date). Being Catholic is part of my crazy. And so then is observing the season of Advent.

Advent marks a specific space in Christian consciousness during which we anticipate Jesus' birth. The ever-risen Christ is, during this hushed time of waiting, not yet born to the world. Advent serves to remind us believers that God's kingdom is always here and not here; always now and not yet. As Fr. Richard Rohr phrases it, adult Christianity is about "making your entire life, and the life of the church, one huge advent." Being human is about always becoming human. To my Catholic mind, Advent is the deep inbreath of solace before the joyous exaltation that hope is born, today and always.

RESOURCES:

Richard Rohr, Preparing for Christmas (Cincinnati, OH: St. Anthony Messenger Press, 2008)

Raw Ruach*

It’s been awhile. My initial optimism on all this elimination diet business has quite subsided, to put it lightly. At this point in the process it is perhaps more accurate to say that my detestation for the elimination diet, for my stomach and body, and for my nutritionist’s recommendations is quieting to a small but sincere grumble—“grumble” being a pun. As I am moving once again into a phase of … well, acceptance is too strong a word for it … perhaps tolerance, yes … as I have put down my swinging fists and become tolerant of the situation, I have the slightest distance from which to reflect upon my angry resistance. Let me recap my tummy’s journey over the past few months in bulleted fashion:

• March: discovery of potential allergies to eggs, dairy, gluten; referral to nutritionist
• April: meet with nutritionist and agree to seek health; begin elimination diet
• April/May: detox brings mood swings, headaches, rashes, acne, etc. to surface; Kelly feels like she’s on crazy pills
• May: challenge foods by reintroducing eliminated foods, one at a time, to determine tolerability; irritability down, impatience up
• June: exhausted. Meet with nutritionist while mistakenly thinking it’s the last session (wrong!). Rather, it’s on to liver support diet: no gluten (still), no sugar, no alcohol, no CAFFEINE. Appointment promptly followed by shameful tantrum in the privacy of my apartment.
• April-June: several breakdowns, sob fests, questioning of my sanity, getting back up and dusting myself off, return to crazy land, depression; interspersed with notable improvement in stomach function and times of extreme gratitude and enthusiasm

I am not miserable and I am not complaining. This is simply a depiction of my state of self as I’ve adhered to this process. It is working, it is worth it, and as difficult as this has been there are far worse health concerns I am so grateful (lucky?) to be free of. That said, I would like to share my musings on the correlation between my tummy’s journey and my spiritual journey. As always, apologies for the hokey language, please do not let it hinder you from reading on.

After a particularly draining day of inexplicable weeping and an equally inexplicable five pound weight gain (!), I emailed my nutritionist (heretofore referred to as my “angel”; read into this as you will). It was pure panic. I had successfully finished the food challenge portion of this nightmare, ahem, regimen and was flying to New York for a wedding. I’d spent the previous weekend at a music festival where I had the foresight to purchase “safe” foods to bring with me and had done all right, save for the beers and burger. But my tummy was stronger by now and all was really not so bad, except that I hadn’t met with my nutri-angel since before the challenging had ended and was terribly troubled about how to move forward with eating. So my email went something like, “Please help! I hate my stomach! I am depressed! I don’t know how to feed myself! I’ve failed!” My angel wisely gave me a call. When she did, angel that she truly is, she urged me to celebrate my victories thus far, noting that, “People pay thousands of dollars to go away on detox retreats, yet you’ve done all this on your own in the midst of your graduate studies and busy life!” Sweet, sweet angel; sweet, sweet allergy-free victories.

My angel recommended that I do what is called a “raw day” on my cross-continental flight. Here is where the angel begins to sound crazy-anorexic and where my skepticism regarding the extremeness of this work (though softened by her profound words of support) peaked. Her advice? Oh simple: eat ONLY six to seven green apples that day, with a whey protein beverage. Pishaw!!!! What am I, a giant hamster? As in, the literal and figurative “guinea pig.” This recommendation struck me as psychotic, unbalanced, unhealthy. But I am not a quitter. Actually, historically I am a huge quitter—theater, track & field, cross-country, lacrosse, rugby, and my college foodservice job—but apparently I’ve grown out of that habit. Or the crazy really got to me. So I followed this seemingly sickly advice and did the apples-only raw food day as I travelled from the left to the right coast of this great nation up in the friendly skies.

Turns out, “raw” is the perfect term for describing how this plan to heal my stomach has felt. My relationship with my body and with food, the social alienation of being different at table, my physical and emotional wounds, the challenge of having to mindfully choose again and again and all day everyday what is allowable versus what is being craved or what is easiest … all has been exposed. Not so much in the sense of looking behind the curtain to discover some lie that has always been there, but more as if I have been stripped of all my masks, shields, weapons and armor. And I’m just sitting here, looking at the mask that seeks approval, at the shield that protects me from the arrows of painful memories. Raw like the bare body, raw like the open wound, raw like the uncooked self that is so literally not prepared for consumption. Not prepared for the simplest of trials. My spirit is raw, scraped out, open and naked.

As for the green apples-only day, my trip and the wedding were incredible! And also followed immediately upon my return by yet another cry fest—and another anorexic raw day. I remain a raw wreck.

*Ruach is a Hebrew word used in the Hebrew Bible that generally means wind, breath, mind, spirit. I use it here in the title to mean all these, especially spirit. I am also playing with the word "raw," as the phrase "Raw Ruach" demonstrates alliteration and consonance as well as semi-assonance. I've read my Nabokov.

DIY Communion Wafers – Gluten-Free

(Thanks to the Washington Celiac Support Group)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Mix together:
2 Tblsp. potato starch
1 Cup minus 2 Tblsp. (7/8 cup) cornstarch
3 Cups brown or white rice flour
1 Tsp. baking soda
1 Tsp. salt
2 Tblsp. Xanthum Gum

Cut 1/2 Cup margarine into ingredients.

Add 1 Cup buttermilk, and mix with fingers until workable.

Roll with rolling pin on a rice floured surface as thin as possible.

Use bottle caps to cut in small circles. (These can be obtained by consuming gluten-free beer beforehand).

Place in oven for 6 minutes.

Serves several hundred.

Her Fodder

My fellow grad student and dear friend Kate has begun a blog in which she delves into the spirituality of eating. This aligns nicely with my recent posts yet provides an alternative approach to food and spirituality. Rather than bitch and complain about food allergies, elimination diets and being kept from celebrating Eucharist (eh, she's Lutheran as it is), Kate has started to eat like a monk--literally. Over several weeks she ventures to try a faithful taste of various monastic communities' menus, being mindful of the ways in which food nourishes more than just the body, but the whole person. If my elimination diet were influenced by a group of friars, they would probably call themselves the Anselm's Allergic Ascetics or St. George's Gluten-Fearing Gurus. That's all I got. I'll work on coming up with something of greater wit.

Image taken from Kate's Blog, www.eatinglikeamonk.blogspot.com.

Grace & Gluten

I meant to mention this a bit ago. During Lent I made the Novena of Grace, which is nine days of consecutive masses on a chosen theme. This year's theme was Free Our Hearts and included nine reflections from the three presenters. These can be heard on the Ignatian Spirituality Center's website. The reflections aren't that long and I recommend listening to them over nine days or so in a prayerful way, if it interests you.

For me the experience was doubly special as my parents and grandparents attended most of the days. It's also the most dutiful church-going I've done in months. Which reminds me that as the Communion host contains gluten, I'm off of Christ just now. Jesus blood, er, wine, is perfectly admissible though. I imagine there is some spiritual significance in all this, but I keep ruminating over how folks in first century Jerusalem I'll bet didn't suffer food allergies--in part because of the wisdom of Judaic cleanliness laws, but also thanks to parasitic hookworms.

No joke.

Novena Graphic by Jan Richardson - www.janrichardson.com

Detoxifixion

The food allergy situation has been amended. After meeting with a nutritionist, I am currently following what is called an "elimination diet." The name does not mislead. Foods eliminated include eggs, dairy, gluten, soy, corn, "nightshades" (tomatoes, eggplant, bell peppers, potatoes) and peanuts. Pretty much all processed foods are out, as well as my cherished ice cream, which in all honesty is probably favorable to me. This is basically a whole foods diet. I find myself eating copious amounts of rice, nuts, fruit, vegetables and MEAT. Savory, delicious, protein-packed meat! While alcohol ought to be eliminated as well as coffee, my gracious nutritionist has allowed me these things. Thus I survive.

The elimination diet is temporary--clearly no one could possibly survive in America or the First World with such restrictions. The process remains an adventure, to say the least. The first few days of food elimination result in some rather grievous physical reactions: irritability, mood swings, headaches, blemishes, rashes, etc. These effects ought only last the first few days, then things clear up and health is on the way! The theory is that by eliminating all these foods--and then gradually re-introducing foods to see my tolerance of them--my body both heals and "re-sets" itself in balance.

Now, the irony is not lost on me that while this blog endeavor began as an investigation into myself as a Catholic American consumer of various media--books, movies, policies, norms, etc.--the actual texts I have taken up here have become more and more literal to the consumer theme ... so literal as to include the unexciting details of my eating habits. I could not possibly have planned for this. But I will continue to run with it.

I can't help but find spiritual implications in all this elimination and detoxification business. The connection between healing and spirituality is obvious to me, but I am educated to have "spirit vision," or whatnot. I find that I am a psycho-spiritual being and that the various transformations and traumas that I experience at an emotional, subconscious level manifest themselves physically as well. I won't get into the boring details of my personal life, save for my diet dramas, but the entire stomach strife began in sync with particular life circumstances that left me psychologically ill. The healing of emotional pain, however, did not necessarily beget healing the critical damage my body suffered. Notably, my physical healing has thus far bred much recovery in the psychological and spiritual realms of my person. Hopefully this clarifies my understanding of the body-spirit connection. If not, I'm sure this theme will arise again.

The detoxification bit causes me to wonder about such cleansing on a spiritual level. If eliminating foods that trouble my system brings about a few days of acne, itching and migraines, what might eliminating spiritual hindrances release? What might spiritual blockages be? Do I recognize the ways in which I am spiritually blocked? I'm not so sure.

Recently meditation's not working for me. I told my areligious friends this information, prefaced by the statement, "You will most likely be neutral on what I'm about to say." They were. I told my Christian friends this and received looks of pity, a rub on the back that said "I'm so sorry," and the comforting permission to stop trying if it's not working. I mention all this because the changing face of God and ever-shifting movement of the divine spirit is elusive. My non-Christian friends know this on some level, expressing doubts about the direction of their lives and feelings of being lost, off-track, or stuck. My faithful friends know this as well, telling me that sometimes God is silent, way closes, we find ourselves at an impasse. Please know that I am not dividing my loved ones into two neat groups of Christians and atheists; my point is that what I would call "spiritual blocks" materialize for us all and we use similar language to describe feeling disconnected and low. Difficulty in meditation does not equate a depressive state for me, but it does bring me to contemplate what might be blocking the peaceful flow of gathering myself each morning before the great mystery of the day in prayer and breath. It's probably the lack of soy in my diet.

RESOURCES:

Mary Douglas, Purity and Danger: An Analysis of the Concepts of Pollution and Taboo (New York: Routledge, 2000)

Life in the Fast(-ing) Lane

To date, the Facebook/Twitter fast has been rather anticlimactic. Abstaining from Twitter has proven so easy, in fact, that I am relieved to find my dependence on the status-update-driven site simply not extant. That said, abandoning Facebook leaves me feeling disconnected from the lives of my friends, especially those living outside of the Pacific Northwest. I have the horrible feeling that I am somehow missing out on something ... as if checking in with Facebook several times a day kept me better attuned to those I care about. This is an illogical conclusion for several reasons, one being that some of the most important people in my life (my mother and father, for example) do not even have Facebook profiles. It's also unreasonable to think that Facebook is a more direct mode of connection than other technologies, such as my cell phone or email. Ultimately, I find this feeling that something is going on without me stems from the many pictures posted on Facebook, the event invites I miss out on viewing the second my profile is included, and the stream-of-consciousness-like nature of tweaking my profile to reflect the music I am listening to, the books I read, and my random thoughts about the universe I determine must be shared publicly. What void in me does this desire for Facebook occupy? Do I really need Facebook to feel connected to my friends, to myself? Or is it just a means for further complicating my life and distracting myself from real relationships with real people in the real world?

As I sit with these musings I have to be honest with myself: I am terrible at this Facebook fast. I "cheat" every Sunday as Sundays are traditionally not considered part of Lent, and I unabashedly checked my profile on my birthday last week, justifying this by embracing St. Patrick's Day (my birthday) as a feast day and therefore it's not subject to Lenten stipulations. But really using Facebook at all, even if only once a week, feels as though I am being adulterous in my abstinence. All this just makes me wonder as to the power of abstaining ... is it the intention that matters, or the practice, or something else? People abstain from a variety of things for a variety of reasons--some folks are forced to abstain, some fasts are necessary due to limited means, some people are simply reaching for personal betterment.

I received a call from my doctor at eight o'clock the evening of my birthday. I've been experiencing rather severe stomach pain since last August and was referred to a functional medicine specialist a few weeks ago. On the phone my doctor--a small woman with a smart-sounding, soothing voice--let me know the results of my allergy test were in, and that of the twenty-two food allergies I was tested for, I am allergic to around six or seven foods. My most extreme allergies are to wheat, cow's milk and eggs. She kindly explained that these allergies may not be the entirety of my tummy troubles, but that removing these foods from my diet should help with the pain. There were other issues discussed, and I will avoid making the mistake of over sharing here, but ultimately the tangible plan for my recovery means eliminating wheat, cow's milk and eggs from meals. This news came as a rather disturbing blow. No more ice cream? No bread? What on earth am I to eat when I dine out for breakfast? I've been eating these foods my entire life and until last August there was never any problem! There has to be some mistake ... I can't eat pizza? As my roommate has gently coughed under her breath, this is a "First World" problem for sure. Much like most eating disorders or lap-band surgeries, people struggling for basic food, shelter and clothing probably do not bother worrying about whether or not they can eat a chicken pot pie as their next meal. I certainly have no experience with worrying about having a next meal.

Like any self-respecting, spoiled First World brat, I threw a childlike fit in response to the food allergy news. Passing through the stages of grief as if a sacred piece of my person had been violently torn away, I sat in denial eating pasta and muffins the first day or so. But as my stomach responded with insufferable cramping that left me depressed and couch-bound an entire day, I angrily caved and went one very grumpy day without any wheat, cow’s milk or egg foods. Still not feeling so great, I passed through into the acceptance of my new hobby, eating rice, fruits and plain veggies like a vegan, but with as much meat as I can justify. At present (it hasn’t even been a week since the news and my spirits broke) I find myself working towards getting excited about the foods I can have and trying to discover new recipes. This ordeal has left me with new ponderings about the nature of abstinence. Despite my whining, food allergies are extremely common and it is no great burden to simply avoid consuming certain foods. But I am finding it difficult to act very gung-ho about fasting against my will. Tuning out of Twitter and attempting to do so with Facebook seems palatable as it was my bright idea to do so, and to write about the experience here. However, declining quiches and cakes has never been my idea of a good time. Perhaps the forced fast from poisonous chocolate-chip cookies and ruinous burritos will yield greater spiritual insight than have my voluntary (and slightly failed) attempts to abolish social networking sites from my universe. If nothing else, I imagine less ice cream might leave me with less cellulite this swimsuit season.