Intended for Wine!?!
Okay, so I learned a fun new fact the other day: the yeast which is used to ferment wine occurs naturally on the skin of the grape while it hangs on the vine. Take grapes; crush them; leave them alone; and in a little while you will have made wine. No additions required. The more I thought about this fact the more I came to realize that it is a lot harder not to make wine than to make wine. Grape juice takes work. Wine is the grape's natural liquid state. It's as if the grape was intended for wine. Hmmm. Nice Thought.What do you think?
posted by steve | 7:33 PM
7 Comments:
Yeah, Right. Next you're gonna try to tell me that we can look at the human anatomy and infer that people were intended for sex. Yuk.
What do you think?
I think that, like bread, wine is not only a divinely ordained symbol of death and resurrection, it was created to be so from the beginning. Grain is for bread, grapes are for wine. Grain and grapes in their "natural state" are do not have the capacity to embody, symbolize, signify, or point to death and resurrection to new life.
I think that those who insist on using grape juice in communion should also insist on using raw grain. Bread is as unnatural as wine. To get bread or wine you must crush their essential ingredients.
But, who am I to say? You know those Anglicans -- they're always looking for another excuse to sip a glass of sherry.
bq
Aaron,
Thanks for the comment. Also, please forgive the poetic florish. In an earlier edit of that post I originally had "Its almost as if the grapes natural..." I removed the qualification to give it some punch.
The point of my rhetorical hyberbole was the fact that it seems pretty difficult to to make just juice...or rather pretty easy to make wine. The moment you crush the grapes you combine the sugar and the yeast and have begun the fermentation process.
My own extrapolation from this fact was that juice might be an intermediary form but the liquid telos of the grape is wine.
Perhaps the devil's advocate could be answered by stating that the telos of the grape is not just a single thing, but a number of things:
1)Food
2)Juice
3)Wine
4)Vinegar
The grape seems to be "purposed" for all of these things. Although, when we look at scripture (I realize this isn't the purpose of the post), it seems to me that the primary purpose for the grape is wine; and I imagine that it was a lot easier to make and store wine than it was grape juice, especially without refrigeration or preservatives.
I guess another angle is to argue for ockam's razor: "...it is a lot harder not to make wine than to make wine. Grape juice takes work."
I was talking to a friend about this post and he summarized it well, I think:
"If I buy a hot dog, and I unwrap it and see a hot dog and a packet of ketchup inside; I will probably think to myself, 'I bet I'm supposed to put the ketchup on the hot dog and eat it.'"
If the friend who said this wants to claim it or correct it, I'll let him reveal himself.
DrewDog,
Dont blame anonymous friends for your bad ideas.
2 things everybody knows:
1. You dont have any friends
2. Hot Dogs, belonging to the sausage family, require mustard not ketchup.
Hey, don't pin the ketchup thing on me; I was just quoting you, er, I mean me.
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