Disturbing Practices
Picture this in your mind: It is Sunday, the heat is sweltering. Sweat beads down your forehead as you spend hours in church listening to some guy in a fancy robe drone on about rules and regulations thought up by people thousands of years ago. As you near the end of this marathon of rhetoric, there is hope. There are…snacks. You stand in line, waiting for your turn to devour the corpse of your savior, an extension of your god, but lo! You are denied your desserts! You receive but one small cracker and a sip of wine. You can’t even get drunk on that. You are not a tiny, yet devout, baby.
You grow up to curse your religion, forsaking your cultural heritage and becoming a shiftless vagabond crying out to the people on the street, “Trust not the Church! Trust not the Church!”
This is what Christianity has wrought!
Or is it? I can’t distinguish reality from imagination.
When I was growing up I went to Church with my dad. He is Romanian Orthodox Christian and in that particular section of the Christian faith, food is kind of a big deal. I actually had a pretty good time of things, post-sermon, as all the old Romanian ladies (my grandmother included) would provide food at the end. It always felt kind of awesome to know that I had got through another one of those things. It was like God was rewarding me for a job well done. He’d pat me on the back and say, “Good job kid, thanks for being here, now have some of this delicious spinach pita.” and I would happily oblige. Our version of the “flesh and blood” thing was a lot better as well. Homemade bread chunks and some pretty damn good wine made for a nice break.
Then I learned about Catholicism. Tiny dry crackers and barely drinkable wine were all that was on the menu. I remember going to a Catholic church at one point when I was maybe 9 or 10 and thinking, “This is insane.” I didn’t want to eat the crackers there, the Lord in that place didn’t look quite right.
It seemed contradictory then, as it does now, that a faith so heavily reliant on the idea of transubstantiation (the belief that, somehow through faith, the bread and the wine really DO become the flesh and blood of Jesus) would make their Lord taste so bland.
I tried sneaking a bottle of soy sauce in to liven things up, once.
It didn’t go over very well.
I stopped going to Church not long after.
I giggled.
Also, i think it would be kinda cool to have a giant zipper, eh?
Yeah I love that huge zipper. Definitely want one on one of my sweaters. I would look bad-ass.
why does he not sell those things, i want one.
I’ve been trying to get my blacksmith brother to make me some giant zippers to sell! Hopefully he’ll do it soon. He’s buying a new forge and anvil soon haha
I’d buy two. One for me jackets, and one for me pants!
i so want that big zipper
Does he live in the sky???
I know right??!!! I’m hungry, just give me all of them. D:<
Oh my goodness! I’ve been following your comic for months, and now I find out you’re (half?) Romanian! I’m Romanian too – and my national pride is compelling me to like you and your work even more!
Not to mention, good job on the comic strip, kid. Here’s some sarmale. 😉
Yeah my family is largely Romanian, the culture’s pretty strong on my dad’s side as my grandmother came over here when she was a little girl. HER mother came here when she was, I believe, in her 30’s. My great grandma was…a tough woman, typical of women from Romania at the time. While I’m not big on family stuff, it was always cool to have that culture there whenever I saw my grandma, not to mention the totally awesome food she’d make us! Someday maybe I’ll get to visit Romania and learn about the folklore there. There’s a lot of weird cultural myths and legends that come from that area of the world and many people aren’t even aware of it. :O
Oh, that’s interesting. My great-(great?)-parents migrated to the USofA in the beginning of the 1900s (I think?), but after working there for a while and making some money, they returned to their home in Romania.
Mhm, I think that Romanian folklore would be interesting and sometimes strange enough to be in one, or two, of your comic strips. If you ever do visit Romania, drop me a line and perhaps I can act as a guide, since I live in the heart of Transylvania, “Dracula’s” hometown! 🙂
Oh my god (haha)! I’m fully Romanian too! This is so cool! Romania! Yay!
Oops, here’re* I think?
As soon as i was done, walking away with my hand fulls of homemade bread, I’d get back to the pew, and ask my mom if i could go up for seconds. I just couldn’t get enough of my Romanian orthodox savior flesh. 🙂
Unitarian Universalist services have a similar practice of having food at the end, although from my experience it’s usually coffee and cookies with juice provided for the kids. Occasionally potlucks and soup lunches were arranged, though. The first time I went to a church service that didn’t have cookies at the end I was extremely disappointed.
Also, I kind of want to attend a Romanian Orthodox Christian service now. That food sounds fantastic.
We didn’t even get crappy wine at my Catholic church. And the flesh of Christ always tasted so stale I wanted to spit him out.
Which, in fairness, makes sense after 2000 years.
Did you stop attending after the soy sauce incident, or were you strongly “encouraged” not to come back?
I had hoped God would weigh in a bit more on the subject, but He works in mysterious ways i guess, even in Happle Tea.
P.s. The eastern rite catholics are similar to the orthodox faiths so don’t lose hope (special bread chunks made every week just for mass and kick-ass wine) and same with the food in some places, ymmv.
Thanks for the awesome comic!
Man, when I was a kid I went to a Lutheran church, and they only gave us wafers and wine, which they eventually switched to grape juice. Also, sometimes everyone had to drink from/dip wafers in the same cup.
I for one, have never experienced a church like that XD And there is a semi-complicated reason for communion, but long story short, it was created as an action to remember Jesus by, so that we wouldn’t use an image as an idol to represent him. Hence the actual idiocy of using the cross to represent him….
I was raised in the Mormon religion and they do something similar. They required people to fast before the services, have communion which consisted of bread chunks and water, then go to some seminary classes before finally getting to leave to eat. I found out I was hypoglycemic and passed out numerous times because I wasn’t allowed to eat anything at all, save the communion, till we left the church. My doctor said that I can’t participate in fasting, ever, because of this routine ‘abuse’ (doctor’s words) of my system as a kid. I haven’t set foot in that church since I was 14. The bishop there said I was ‘making it all up.’ Same bishop I slap as a child because he tried taking my drawing pad away during the service.
Ah, I remember when I went to Church as a child. I was Roman Catholic, by the way. The wafer was pretty tasty actually, if very tiny. I think the Father made sure it was. I think the wine tastes terrible to discourage us from becoming alcoholics.
I’m a protestant Christian, and the bread and wine in our service serves only as a symbolic reminder of Christ’s sacrifice, just as Christ used it as a symbol during the last supper. You can’t find transubstantiation in the Bible. It’s one of many traditions the Catholic church has tacked on to the faith.
Look, I’m a Protestant too, but I don’t think it’s nessecary for the two branches of the faith to go around slapping each other all the time.
As a Presbyterian, I can say that crackers and grape juice sucks! Maybe I should convert to this Romanian Orthadox
It just depends on the parish. When I was a kid, we went to a large obnoxious cathedral, there was no community. Now I go a lovely little parish where we all bring some food and catch up with each other after church. It’s all a little different wherever you go.
You sound like a pretty cool guy. Me on the other hand, used to kind of look forward to that, even if it was measly. I never found it insane, a little weird maybe. For me going to church is all kinds of boring but now I can’t really imagine not going because I’ve decided to come for the people and not the religion.
If you can’t tell I am not very devout or observant either :p
wow, did you said romanian? does that means that you might know about strigoi moroi and pricolici?
cos ive seen a documentary that im almost sure was not telling the truth… it said lot of people are afraid of vlad teppes today because they think he is some kind of vampire, and also the description of the “3 different kinds of vampires” was something like… this is red head, this is bald, this is like a wolf, and they are all the same anyway… but this is stronger tan this other but this one and blablabla… and then it start to say things that does not have any sense at all… like… if moroi are humans who were victims of strigoi why would there be stories about morois that were born this way?
so if someone who really knows about it could explain it for me… like what is the real diference between strigoi moroi and pricolici… and how they really are… if that thing about being redhair is true, and if its like, every strigoi have to be redhead or not…
i really like vampires but its really hard to find someone who really know about that stuff…
BTW, Really nice comic!