Just reading a prompt like that is enough to make me feel rather intimidated. Where am I supposed to start? There's been so many scholars and experts who have poured over the Bible and tried to decipher it's hidden meanings or secret values. I feel a little insecure trying to follow in their footsteps with only a rudimentary understanding of the text. Although I consider myself Episcopalian, I've never really been all that religious. I'm terrible about going to church because I feel it's just someone droning on and I don't feel a personal connection to God in that setting. However, going to the service does teach me some of the basic prayers and gives me food for thought when I find my own mental communion with God out in my backyard.
"Give us each our daily bread, and forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive everyone who is indebted to us." (156)
I've heard much the same piece -although with the words slightly altered- at every service I've ever attended. It's a very simple, straight forward sentiment but really expresses the basic needs of mankind. It asks only that we stay fed, behave well, and share the sentiment of forgiveness with everyone. For being only a single sentence, it sure holds a lot of important expressions on how we ought to live.
"Today most scholars think that the Last Supper of Jesus and his disciples was a modified and transformed Passover." (164)
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| The sacrificial lamb to fuel out religious traditions. |
I had never heard the historical context of the Last Supper and Passover so this was new information to me. But one thing the reading didn't point out is the rather ironic statement of calling Jesus the "lamb of God." During Passover, a lamb is sacrificially slaughtered and fed to the populace. It's in the same thread of Jesus saying "this is my body and blood which is given to you" before he was killed. So are we enacting symbolic cannibalism by carrying on the tradition today or have we found a way to circumvent meat? I could see this going in either direction. In one case, we've toned it down from the flesh of animals to bread and wine which is obviously an improvement. But on the other hand, we still insist on ritually eating something we still consider "flesh" in a metaphorical sense. So are we any better or worse? To be honest, I can decide which way I believe.
Passion defined as "physical suffering (beginning of the 12th century), strong emotion, love (beginning of the 13th century." (343- Fall Anthology Volume 2)
Now on to the love section. I must say that when I first read the prompt, my mind immediately drifted to the romantic connotations of the word. I blame the impending february holiday. But in order to review passion and love in the sense that we've been using them lately, I read back through our old anthology. I know I read the definitions the first time around but only this time did I notice the sudden shift in passion's meaning. Within the span of 100 years, it went from a physical sensation of pain to a stronger version of love. I wonder why it made that jump in two things that seem pretty separate to me. Did the word become associated with the pain of heartbreak? Or was Jesus so passionate that it went from referring from his pain of the cross to his love for the people? I'd really like to know when/where this disjunct occurred.
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| The triangle theory of love. I think it applies to more than romanticism. |
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