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Morgue Gear Solid 3: Sin Eater
May. 28th, 2020 08:50 am Picture me as of five minutes ago: Slav-squatting in front of my refrigerator, drinking old cold brew in an attempt to wake up. I have too much schoolwork to do and a funeral to deal with from 1-5pm, but instead I'm glaring down a bundle of carrots sitting in my vegetable drawer. I'm probably nearing mania. 1958 smash hit 'Tequila' is looping in my head.
Okay. Now we know my mental state.
I've had four funerals in the past 3 days. FOUR. Funerals are a 5 hour+ deal, but there are so many dead people. Luckily today I just have a Jewish service; I'm not Jewish, but I know the customs well enough to properly help with one. Those are almost always graveside only for a cool 45 minutes, rarely do they have a chapel service or visitation of any kind (unless they're Reformist, but we mostly get Orthodox and Conservative). I'm not sure why I have to be there 4 hours, maybe I'm needed for morgue work.
ANYWAYS. Yesterday at the end of a visitation I was in the thick of a rosary and nearly fell asleep. Rosaries are exhausting, my eyes usually cross and since I don't participate it's just a lot of chanting. The Father was particularly soft spoken and slow so what was a 20 minute affair was dragged to 45-50 minutes. He mentioned eating bread, and my dumb hungry self immediately thought of food, and then sin-eaters.
Back in ye olden times, sin-eaters were people paid to stand over a corpse, eat bread, and drink wine or beer. This, in theory, resolved the deceased of their sins as the sins ... went into the food? And it hastened their trip out of Purgatory, much like how praying the rosary for a decedent supposedly eradicates the deceased of their sins and allowed them into Heaven.
I always found sin-eaters fascinating, the concept of sins leaving the body and jumping into food is so bizarre but these are also the people that believed in bodies having miasma.
The Middle Ages were an ........... interesting time!
Also, dear Lurch has a few new leaves that unfurled, with some more on the way <3 I'm so happy he's thriving. Here's my favorite one so far:
Okay. Now we know my mental state.
I've had four funerals in the past 3 days. FOUR. Funerals are a 5 hour+ deal, but there are so many dead people. Luckily today I just have a Jewish service; I'm not Jewish, but I know the customs well enough to properly help with one. Those are almost always graveside only for a cool 45 minutes, rarely do they have a chapel service or visitation of any kind (unless they're Reformist, but we mostly get Orthodox and Conservative). I'm not sure why I have to be there 4 hours, maybe I'm needed for morgue work.
ANYWAYS. Yesterday at the end of a visitation I was in the thick of a rosary and nearly fell asleep. Rosaries are exhausting, my eyes usually cross and since I don't participate it's just a lot of chanting. The Father was particularly soft spoken and slow so what was a 20 minute affair was dragged to 45-50 minutes. He mentioned eating bread, and my dumb hungry self immediately thought of food, and then sin-eaters.
Back in ye olden times, sin-eaters were people paid to stand over a corpse, eat bread, and drink wine or beer. This, in theory, resolved the deceased of their sins as the sins ... went into the food? And it hastened their trip out of Purgatory, much like how praying the rosary for a decedent supposedly eradicates the deceased of their sins and allowed them into Heaven.
I always found sin-eaters fascinating, the concept of sins leaving the body and jumping into food is so bizarre but these are also the people that believed in bodies having miasma.
The Middle Ages were an ........... interesting time!
Also, dear Lurch has a few new leaves that unfurled, with some more on the way <3 I'm so happy he's thriving. Here's my favorite one so far:
