Bits of Yarn, Calico and Velvet Scraps                                                            Page 14

STRIPPING

The force of a religious symbol lies in the fact

that it recaptures a primal scene fantasy and

transforms it into an instrument of discovery

and exploration of origins.

Paul Ricoeur

The work of exploration and discovery is

dangerous. Pull the thread of questions and the

seamless garment will surely unravel, leaving too

much exposed. Pull just one thread and the rest

must follow, the whole carefully woven pattern

disappearing in a tangle of yarn. God, Christ,

Church, Self, Story all stripped. And what would

there be to see? Only wounded flesh and blood.

My world was unravelling around me quite some

time before I knew it. God had been pronounced

dead and I did not even see the obituary. And when

I did come upon it, I didn't believe it. It was a

rumour from 'outside' somewhere, irrelevant to

'us', so I thought. In the meantime the work of

renewal within was going on apace! I was happily

'returning to our origins and adapting to our times',

as the Church had directed, not realising what the

exploration of origins might turn up.

Signs of radical change showed first in our central

symbol, the celebration of Eucharist - a sacrament

so reified that we had Jesus/God physically

captured in a small piece of bread. Love was

trapped and hard to recognise in this meal.

Developments in Eucharistic theology and in the

understanding of celebration effected a sea change

in me.