Chapter 2: Nice to Eat with You: Acts of Communion

       As I started reading the assigned book for this class I have realized one very important thing, everything is not exactly what it seems. Often this means it is a symbol: the main character is the knight who will save the day, a trip is a quest, or the meal is a meaning of peace. Foster's second chapter is all about how in literature, many meals are a related to communion. He makes sure that by communion, he doesn't mean technically the Christian idea, but the idea of sharing and peace.

       As I read this chapter the first book to pop into my mind was the classic To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee. The main character Scout Finch is a young girl, symbolizing innocence, and at times she can be very ignorant. Once at school there was a very poor boy that didn't bring lunch to school and the teacher tries to offer him money, saying he can pay her back later. Scout jumps in saying he wouldn't pay her back because he's poor, getting Scout into trouble. Later, when she's mad, she bullies him for getting him in trouble, but her brother Jem steps in to offer Walter dinner at the Finch house. At the dinner, Scout is very rude to Walter, therefore she is scolded for her behavior and sent back to the table. This meal is very much like a communion because it opens Scouts eyes to the world, rather than keeping her concealed in her own ignorance. An important factor to this communion is the people surrounding Scout and that even though she is very strict minded and childish, everyone else is sharing and conforming to the needs of others, providing a good moral background for scout to grow up with. 

       Another, not so classic, novel, The Fault in Our Stars, has a very iconic love dinner scene. Basically two cancer riddled star crossed teens, Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters, fly to Amsterdam to meet their favorite author,and they are treated to a beautiful dinner date. At this date they talk about life and death a lot and sort of question reality. I think that this is very similar to what foster says about communion, "a communion not of death but of what comes before. Of life." Of course, death is a very scary thing to these two teenagers, but they spend this night sharing their dreams and fears, living life instead of testing it. Their communion is all about sharing their love, rather than saying goodbye. 

       What I have learned from this chapter is that a meal is not just eating some grub just like every other night, it provides a theme for the book and the relationships with in it. The reason, as foster says, that a meal is a communion is because it's a gathering of peace and community, and it shows that even just one meal can bring people together. May it be The Finches and Walter Cunningham or Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters, a meal is important.