On last night's Project Runway, designer Elisa Jimenez prompted a fair bit of laughter and derision by spit-marking her fabric to imbue "it with energy and essence." 

As new agey as that may sound, the puzzled and skeptical responses actually speak volumes about the disconnect between contemporary culture and the ancient world.

Case  in point:  biblical accounts of healing by Jesus Christ.  If one thing sticks out to me in today's depictions of Jesus healing, it's the hygiene.  Everything is so clean--a clean Jesus puts his clean hands on clean people, in an unconscious fusion of the gospel narrative with today's antiseptic medical environment.

But the reality was far different.  Not only was dirt everywhere--hence the footwashing and the ubiquitous water and cleansing metaphors--but bodily fluids were an integral part of spiritual transformation. 

In fact, the gospels mention three distinct incidents in which Jesus healed individuals with spit.  Spit on the tongue, spit on the eyes, spit mixed with dirt placed on eyes--not exactly standard procedure on House.  In Christ and Culture, theologian Graham Ward describes the significance of this as follows (p.64):

The body of Jesus is also situated within various fluid operations. . . . He is connected to flows of water, bodily fluids like blood and spit (Mark 8:23) and a force, authority or spiritual strength (dunamis) that passes through him. 

When Elisa spit on the fabric to infuse it with spiritual energy, she was not on some solipsistic "happy planet," as another contestant described her.  She was living in the fusion of spirit and earth that gave rise to our world's leading religions. 

And hey, at least she didn't spit in anyone's eye!