#nominal determinism

infantilized: baby food / anointing of the sick {nominal determinism}

sometimes when I have no energy to cook or eat

my mother makes me smoothies

fruit smoothies: apples, bananas, pumpkin puree, cinnamon. cinnamon, spice, and everything nice.

as a child I liked to “eat, eat, apples and bananas.”

I appreciate it. but sometimes I’m not hungry, or too tired to get up, or it just doesn’t appeal. then I feel so guilty. I know she does it because she loves me and doesn’t know what else to do.

but I didn’t ask for it. I’m not a child anymore. and I don’t even really like fruit. it’s not something I’d make for myself.

(you made your bed. now lie in it)

so she puts the smoothie in the fridge for later

but sometimes it sits there for days

even the preservation environment can’t keep it from spoiling.

i should throw it out, but I’m too tired. or lazy. guilty for the waste. my mother made it for me. now I’m ashamed it exists. maybe she is too. but she’d never say it.

over the course of a few days, you can see the liquid separate, light on the bottom and a layer on the top where it is darker, murkier. most immediately exposed to the elements, it’s the first to go.

but it’ll come soon for the rest, if i wait long enough. if I wait and watch, perhaps because of laziness, lack of self-discipline. perhaps because of morbid curiosity.

perhaps because I hate the fruit, I resent the fruit. it represents something else. maybe many things.

(“This is my body, given up for you”…Jesus in Luke 22:19)

she sees it wasting away, and knocks on my door, reminding me to eat of it, drink of it. but it makes me feel like a child, so I sometimes snap: “Woman! my hour has not yet come.” (John 2:4) and then I feel guilty for not eating the fruit.

“you will eat the flesh of your sons. you will eat the flesh of your daughters.”

“rotten will be the fruit of your womb.”

Even Mary watched her child suffer. And she was the Mother of God. Even Mary suffered, even God was born to die.

Right now, I am at the age when my mother birthed me, the only one who lived. “Her miracle baby.” She named me after one of the ones she lost, her only son, who died in her womb, who she named after Christ, which means Anointed One.

but there is only a subtle difference between being anointed and being cursed. even the sick get anointed, after all.

She had me out of wedlock, and has never stopped feeling guilty for falling into temptation.

I was a c-section. she has a mother wound. and now she compensates by licking her wounds by licking someone else’s.