communion - consumption

 I woke this morning with a memory of this image.

And it sticks with me in contrast with the businessman in Any Rand's "The Fountainhead." The guy who was not Howard Roark, who Rand would be pleased I remember. I read that doorstopper book in high school because her foundation offers a scholarship to write essays about it. I didn't end up composing an essay, because a true capitalist would take the lessons of the book to earn his own money rather than accept a bribe for vanity work. I wasn't going to give Ayn Rand's legacy foundation the satisfaction, so I have forgotten the other character's name, this businessman, and he is not worth the rent in my head. Anyway, this guy has a habit of finding works of art that he loves so deeply that he purchases them immediately. And then proceeds to wipe all traces of it from the rest of the world, storing it in his basement gallery so only he can enjoy it. He justifies this because there was a time where he had nothing and resented the chafing feeling of lacking access and interprets this as a power move to make the rest of the world blind to what he loves.

He had the golden rule in his mind of "He who has the gold makes the rules, and once I had nothing, so I am giving nothing back to the world who once hated me, now I am hated on my own merits on my own choices." What a diseased and pitiable mind, so I do not feel any sympathy to remember his name. At one point in the novel, one of the other protagonists asks the ubermensch architype architect, Howard Roark, "What do you think of me?" And Roark, from his perfect brutalist efficiency and vision of his towering and genius mind, turns to this character and states, "I don't."

So, I am giving unto Rand what is Rand and giving to God what is God's. And she is not God, and neither is Roark for all his perfection and the poverty of spiritual riches found in the materialist books.

And so we come back to this story told by Sendak, which on first glance, would appear to have the same result as the businessman's selfishness with the beauty of art. But the businessman was an adult with experience who could have thought about sharing and the grace of considering others. Children are allowed a grace to be instinctual and impulsive. And I think Sendak's interpretation is gracious and lovely. The child loved the image so much, that he wanted it to be a part of himself, and knew no greater means of doing so in the moment. He took the work of the artist and performed a communion with it.

I would aspire to the same grace to others, and to myself. The act of holy Communion is many things, but occasionally I want to accept it as the child did with free grace and take this priceless gift and honor it as food and fuel for my life. As it was the symbolic blood and the flesh, so may these images and words be transformed into the breath in my lungs, the calories in my veins, the means by with the swiftness of feet to bring the gospel and good news.

We receive this gift not for being deserving, but because we reached out to the Giver with open mouths and wanted to be fed with good bread and water of life. And it was provided like manna in the wilderness. What is this grace? I may never fully know, but I should be delighted to consume it and turn to praise with joy.