Belated thanks to Pastor Jeri for bringing over pies from church a few nights ago. They say Presbyterians love to eat; as a Presbyterian, I'd have to say that the rumors are true. Modern American Christianity retains more than a few elements of the Middle Eastern ethos from which it sprang, and one such element is the notion of breaking bread together. You might argue that all cultures and traditions share this meme, and you'd be right, but in order to appreciate how seriously Presbyterians take this particular notion, you need to hang around one of our churches.
Thanks, Jeri.
UPDATE: Bill Keezer emails: "Presbyterians have nothing on Lutherans when it comes to eating." Sounds like a challenge to me.
I'm bizarrely reminded of my trip to Haein-sa, a Zen temple not far from Taegu, back in 2000. There, at the spartan temple refectory, one wall had a newspaper clipping attached to it. The clipping showed a picture of Haein-sa's abbot. I couldn't see what the article next to the abbot's picture said, but the article's title said, in big, bold Korean: "We did not come into this world to eat." And I thought the Judeo-Christian tradition had cornered the guilt-trip market!
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Marathon
12 years ago
2 comments:
That's a funny anecdote about Haein-sa. I don't know about the abbot, but I'm definitely in the "live to eat" crowd, as opposed to the "eat to live" crowd.
I saesang-ae meogeureo on gae anida!
(Or something like that. I wonder what the abbot would have done had I been wearing a "live to eat" tee shirt.)
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