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Communion thoughts. How to – part one.

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communion

Anybody can celebrate communion. When Jesus celebrated what we now call the Last Supper with his disciples, they were told simply to do this every time they gathered in his name.

He didn’t say they had to be ordained. In fact, Jesus didn’t ordain anybody. He said that to call anybody teacher or Rabbi or Father is to take away from God’s authority.

Jesus came to level the playing field. Jesus makes us all equal.

When I celebrate Communion, I use matzo and kosher grape juice. Both can be purchased at your local grocery store, in the Jewish section.

Communion is a shortened version of the Passover meal, which is a bigger version of the weekly Sabbath meal.

At the Sabbath meal, Jews use challah, a braided egg bread. It is a yeast bread. During the Passover meal, they use matzo, “the bread of affliction”. It is flat and hard. It is a bit like a cracker. It does not have yeast in it, so it doesn’t rise. It is to remind them that their ancestors didn’t have time to let the bread rise when they escaped from Egypt. It is also to remind them of the manna from heaven that God provided for them while they were wandering in the desert for 40 years.

Matzo closely resembles the texture of communion wafers. Or rather, communion wafers are like matzo. It is supposed to be the same thing. Sadly, standard communion wafers don’t look like matzo at all, so Christians don’t see the connection. Nor are we taught it. None of this is a secret, but it isn’t advertised either.

I use kosher grape juice rather than wine because I might have someone there who is in recovery. It is really important for me to include everyone. If I use wine, then those people who cannot have wine are left out. That isn’t right.

I have been to a number of church services that used wine and the priest spelled it out. S/he would say that they used real wine, and that if you couldn’t have wine, to cross your arms over yourself so that the chalice bearer would pass you by. The priest said that you got the full benefit of communion without both elements.

I was a chalice bearer, and that is an awkward moment. Everybody gets wine, except one person. That makes that one person stick out. Their inability to have wine is now essentially public knowledge. It is shameful and embarrassing for them. Something that should be private now isn’t.

There was also a problem at my old church with young children drinking from the chalice. The rule in that denomination was that if you were baptized, you could take communion. They practiced infant baptism. You get the picture. Some children were sucking up the wine like it was Kool-aid.

It all made me think. To use wine is to exclude. To use wine is to cause problems.

I don’t know what makes kosher grape juice kosher, but it sure tastes good, and it comes in a glass bottle. I like that better than plastic. I’m sure I could use standard grape juice but this seems more appropriate.

I put out the matzo, unbroken, on top of a small dish. I pour the grape juice in a cup, half full. I want to make sure everybody has enough, but not make them feel overwhelmed. I pour it at the beginning of the service so that it has a chance to get to room temperature. It is important that people see there is enough for them, but it is also important to finish it off at the end. It can’t be poured back into the container, and it is impolite to pour it down the drain. More on that later.

McNugget Communion

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One reason I became a chalice bearer was to see things up close. There are things that happen at the altar that the church members don’t ever see. You can remove the “gate” at the communion rail all you want to make the church seem more open and inclusive, but there is always going to be a sense of “us” and “them” when the altar is twenty feet away from the nearest person, and at least a hundred feet from the furthest one.

One part that nobody knows about unless you are up there is the hand washing bit. Even the acolytes usually don’t even notice it. It is a ritual hand washing, and only the priest does it. This is done right before the elements of communion (the wafers and the wine) are handled.

Another member of the altar party, sometimes the crucifer (the person who carries the main cross), sometimes just another chalice bearer, will bring over a cruet of water, a small metal basin, and a linen cloth. The priest puts out his/her hands and the other person pours a little bit of water over the fingers, catching the water in the basin. The priest dries his/her hands with the linen cloth. The priest says some words quietly during this time – quietly enough that other person cannot hear them.

None of this is in the prayer book. The congregation has no idea this is going on from the “script”. I asked once, and the priest wouldn’t tell me what the words were. Like it is a secret.

It isn’t a real hand washing. There is no soap. There is no scrubbing. It is ritual.

So what is it?

It is straight from Passover, and thus straight from Shabbat.

At the beginning of Shabbat, you are to wash your hands and say the Netilat Yadayim prayer. “Blessed are you, Lord our God, Master of the Universe, who has sanctified us with thy commandments and commanded us about washing the hands.” Everybody does this – not the “leader”. All are equal.

The more I read about Judaism, the more I realize what a cheap thing the Christian Communion ritual is. The two candles on the altar? They are the two candles on the Sabbath table. The communion wafers? On the regular Sabbath table it is challah, which is nice fluffy egg bread. At Passover, when the Last Supper took place, it would have been matzo, which is unleavened bread. Why are the pieces so small for communion? Because an “olive sized piece of bread is the smallest piece you can make a blessing over.” There is always wine at the Sabbath table if it can be afforded, and always enough for everyone to have at least a glass. Not a sip.

These things are mandatory for a Sabbath meal – bread, wine, and two candles. There are different blessings for each. The candles are always lit first at Sabbath and at the beginning of the church service. At Sabbath there is always a nice meal, using the best linens and plates. The meal is always a real meal – homemade. No leftovers.

We’ve mass produced the Sabbath. We’ve reduced it to a snack, not a meal. We’ve packaged that snack with so much pomp and puffery that we think it is really awesome.

It is the difference between Mama’s fried chicken and chicken McNuggets.

It is the difference between Granny’s pecan pie and a Tom’s mini pecan pie you bought in a gas station.

Me? I want the real thing. I’m not able to settle for the replica, the ritual any more.

Poem – wine

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Every day I eat a handful of grapes.
They are fermenting in me
making wine
in my blood.

The bread of my life
is laid out before you.

How many communion wafers
do you have to eat
to become the Body of Christ?
What is the half life of Jesus?

How long does it take
to know
I’m already
ready,
already
enough?

Eulogy for a young mother who died tragically. (Be open to grief)

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There are no words for our grief. We are here together, wordless, numb, and hurting. We cannot make sense of this senseless loss.

But we are here. We are here to pay our respects to Hannah. We are here together as a testament to our love for our friend, our coworker, our wife, our mother. We are here searching to make sense out of a senseless thing.

Let us comfort each other in our grief. Let us take this time now to cry with each other, to hold each other, to wail with each other. I invite you to do this now.

In some traditions there is something known as Passing the Peace. You do it by shaking the hand or hugging all the people next to you, one at a time. You say “Peace be with you” It is done as a sign of reconciliation. It is done right before communion, because it is important to approach the Lord’s table with an empty heart – one that is free of the burdens of grief and anger. Those feelings keep us away from our true nature, which is love.

When we are angry or grieving we are closed off and cold. The purpose of reconciliation is to make us open and warm. When we are open we grow. When we are closed we die.

Many of us are angry right now. We want answers and there aren’t any. Why did Hannah have to die? Why did someone we love get taken away from us, so soon in her life?

Many of us are angry at God, and that is alright. Be angry. God can handle it. We are the ones who can’t handle it if we hold it in.

I’m not here to explain any of this. I can’t tell you why she died the way she did. I’m not here to tell you that it will all make sense and it is part of God’s plan. Because it will never make sense. And I don’t believe that God plans for us to feel pain, certainly not this kind of pain.

I believe that God is crying with us, is wailing with us, and is holding us right now. I believe that each time we share our grief with each other, God shares our grief with us.

God is there, acting through us. God is in the arms of the person you hug in your grief. God is in our arms as we hug them.

I invite you to be open. I invite you to open yourself to these feelings and to let them out. Cry. Wail. Talk about Hannah. Talk about how you love her.

Notice I said love, and not loved. There is no past tense with love. Love doesn’t end with death, it just changes shape. Where before the shape was the size of Hannah, now it has to expand. It has to get big enough for us to include each other in it. Every person here has a tiny bit of Hannah in them. When we share our grief with each other, we are also sharing Hannah with each other.

Open up. Don’t close yourself off.

Our society teaches silence and stoicism. Our society teaches us to have a stiff upper lip and that big boys don’t cry. Our society is full of it.

Cry. Let it out. Let it out because that grief will hold you back from life. That grief will hold you back from love.

That grief, locked up, will hold you down under the waves for so long that you’ll stop being able to breathe. That grief, locked up, will kill you. Maybe not literally, but you’ll be dead just as certainly as you would be if you drowned. Grief, locked up, leads to a certain half-life, a certain zombie like existence. Grief, locked up, only delays the pain, it doesn’t get rid of it. Let it out, and live.

Let it out because you have to. Let it out because you must, because you love Hannah.

Talk about her. Celebrate her life. Celebrate the time she spent with you and everything you did together. Do something in honor of her, something that you both enjoyed doing together. Donate to a charity in her name. Plant a tree. Paint. Write. Dance.

Many people say that to show joy in grief is to show disrespect to the person you are grieving for. I say that to not show joy is to not show the love you have for her.

We grieve deeply because we love deeply.

Be open. Be open because you love Hannah.

Peace be with you.

(Written as a eulogy for a young mother who died tragically.)

“Those people”

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It is so easy for people to think that church is a special club. They are in it, so it must be special.

And then they look around and they see people who don’t look like them. They are a different color or class or race. They are from a different culture or country.

And they don’t like it.

How can “those people” get in here? Like it makes them lesser, because the church is big enough for people who aren’t like them.

I’ve taken communion with homeless men. I’ve shared the cup with addicts and alcoholics. The person at the rail on one side of me is divorced. The other person is going to be divorced soon because she is cheating on her husband. Widows, orphans, and the wealthy are here.

We all are joined in this communion. We all are joined in this Body.

We are all crumbs
And we are all chosen.

And it is beautiful.

They aren’t “those people”. They are us with different faces and different stories. But they are us, all the same.

For us to exclude them or think they are lesser is to harm ourselves and to weaken the Body.

In the same way that a husband is married to his wife, when we are joined into the Body of Christ, we have to love all of it.

To paraphrase Pogo “We have met Christ, and He is us.”

House sign

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I really like religious accessories. I love going into religious stores of all sorts and looking at the stuff that goes along with various traditions. I’m also amazed by how much of this stuff is available online.

I was considering buying a mezuzah. While I’m not Jewish, I like the idea of a symbol that is a reminder of our shared commitment to serving God. I have found the prayers used for putting it up and all the specifics for how to do it.

So then I started to look around. The simplest place is online, and I discovered that Amazon has several mezuzah cases. Some are quite simple. Some are quite expensive. While looking I found one that specified it was a Messianic Jewish mezuzah. I kind of liked that idea. I don’t want to give the wrong impression to people, and this seemed like a happy medium.

But then I didn’t really like the symbol. There is a menorah, a Star of David, and a fish, all joined together. I liked that, but because the orientation the fish is upside down and at the bottom I wasn’t hot on it. For me, all the symbols have to be equal and can’t “read” as lesser or greater than.

So this was a drawback. Then I thought about the scroll on the inside. It is known as a “klaf” and it has to be done in a certain way and by a specially trained person to be kosher. I figured that even if I’m not Jewish, if I’m going to use a Jewish religious item I should do it correctly. I wondered how I was going to get a scroll. Turns out Amazon has those too. Who knew?

But then I started thinking a little bit more about this. The words will be sealed up inside this case. Even if they weren’t, I couldn’t read them, or at least not yet, because they are in Hebrew.

For the same reason that the Catholic mass is no longer done in Latin but is instead in the language of the land, I should get something in English, and have it visible. Hiding it away doesn’t make any sense for my purposes and actually goes against my philosophy.

So then I switched gears again. Then I started looking for a plaque that said what I wanted, and I could mount it at the door. The simplest thing is something that says “As for me and my household, we will serve the Lord” (from Joshua 24:15) Yes, Amazon has those too, in a variety of fonts and finishes.

And then I stopped.

This is someone who has realized that you don’t need to have a priest to have Communion. It doesn’t have to be blessed by a specially trained or consecrated person. None of the disciples were ordained. None of them had a master’s degree from a seminary. I suspect that many of them were illiterate. Jesus came to take the power away from the authorities and gave it away freely to everybody. Jesus didn’t come to create an exclusive club. Jesus says to everybody “You’re in” and he throws open the doors to the party, much to the consternation of the powers that be.

Not only do you not need a priest to consecrate it, you don’t have to have any special supplies. You can celebrate it with the bread and wine you have on hand, or crackers and grape juice for that matter. It isn’t the symbol that matters. It is what it points to. If you realize this you’ve unlocked a door.

So I don’t need to buy a sign saying “As for my house, we will serve the Lord.” I could make my own.

Sometimes it takes me a while to come all the way around back to myself. Sometimes I get distracted by things. Sometimes the things become more important than what they represent.

Crumbs

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I’m amused/perplexed/concerned by the thing that my old church did after communion. All heavily liturgical churches do this.

Anything that was consecrated had to be consumed, locked away, or specially disposed of. Drops of wine and specks of communion wafers had to be dealt with.

After everybody had taken communion, the chalice bearers would do a little pre-cleaning while still at the altar. At this church they did it with their backs to everybody, in part to not be in the way of the priest and the crucifer who took on a quasi-deacon role. Of course, it didn’t matter that their backs were to everybody. They were standing at least 20 feet away from the first pew, and nobody sits in the first pew anyway. So it wasn’t like what we were doing was secret, but in a way it was.

Yes. I said we. I was one of them. I became a chalice bearer in part because I wanted to know what was going on up there. I love ritual. I love symbolism. And I love being on the inside of things. For some things you have to be “in” to get all the layers of meaning.

Plus, they were chronically short on chalice bearers. I was grateful to have the opportunity to learn as much as I did so early in my membership. It was so big at my old church in Chattanooga that there was no way I could have made a place for myself up at the altar. They were full up on helpers.

But I should have thought about the fact that they had so few people who were able or willing to do that task at this church. I feel it speaks to a certain lack of activity, or a certain fear of it.

Plenty people don’t feel “worthy” to be a chalice bearer. Some don’t even feel worthy enough to touch the chalice to help the chalice bearer guide it to their lips so they don’t get wine spilled on them. Some don’t even feel worthy enough to take communion at all. This is worth a whole post on its own.

But some don’t even want to participate, not really. They want to show up and get a sticker for being there and go home. They’ve done their duty for the week.

Back to the clean up part. The chalice bearers drink whatever is left of the wine in their chalices. Then they pour a little water in the chalice and a little water on the paten (the plate for the wafers). They swish it around to catch any crumbs. Then they pour the water from the paten into the chalice, swirl it around, and drink it too. They will use their linen napkins (called purificators) to wipe up anything left and put them in the chalice.

There is a special order to how the whole assembly is put together to be put back on the shelf for the altar guild.

The next place it goes is to the piscina.

The piscina is a special place that the communion ware goes after the chalice bearers are done with their bit. It is a special sink that is not connected to the sewer system. The drain goes directly to the ground. This way no unintentional bits of consecrated elements go into the sewer system.

To me, this seems all a bit excessive. Even if a crumb is dropped, it has to be eaten or disposed of outside on the ground. It can’t be vacuumed up. It can’t be stepped on and ground into the carpet.

Funny how the ministers care so much about the crumbs and they miss the people who are leaving.

I’m still a bit angry about the fact that I’ve been gone from that church for almost a year now and it was as if I never went. I went almost every Sunday for three years. I was up front serving, as a chalice bearer, a lector, or an acolyte – or all three, for the majority of that time. I wasn’t just a pew warmer. I was up and working. I was visible. My name was in the order of service. Because I was part of the deacon discernment process I was even being prayed for by name as part of the Prayers of the People.

But none of that means anything. I left, and it is just like I went off the radar and nobody noticed. I’ve seen a few people from that church in the library or at the Y and they act like nothing has happened. It is all very weird. It makes me think that I made the right decision – that they were all asleep all along.

Sure, some are awake and present. Some asked what was going on. Some took the time to listen to my concerns. But not nearly the amount I would expect, given my activity level. Surely some of them would wonder if I was OK. Surely some of them would call or email to see if I was sick, or hurt. The fact that a handful of people cared enough to talk with me about why I left just lets me know I was in the wrong place all along.

I feel like I wasted three years of my life. And I’m wary of committing to another church organization, of any form. I’m wary of getting sucked in only to get spit out all over again.

I’m wary of finding out once again that the crumbs are more important than the people.

Church refugee. On circle, and communion.

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I’ve met so many refugees from church recently. We are starting to find each other. We are all people who went to church for many years because we love Jesus. We left church because we weren’t finding him there.

So many of us feel hurt by church. We were made fun of or silenced. We were mocked for our gifts and talents. It seems that all we were wanted for was our money. We were expected to sit down and shut up and listen to the minister and pay our tithes and then go home and be equally passive. If we read the Bible for ourselves and asked questions we were discouraged. We knew in our hearts that this wasn’t right. We knew that God wanted more of us.

We tried to make it work in church. We volunteered for more activities. We were on committees. We were in several different groups. We were active. We were the first at the church and the last to leave on Sunday morning.

But it wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough for us, and it wasn’t enough for God. We were trying to make it work.

So we left. Some of us left the churches we’d put a lot of time and money into. Some of us left the churches that we were raised in, that our families still go to.

Several of us have found each other in a circle gathering. We share time together, and we are honest and open. Each person gets to talk, and every person listens. This is so different from church as we know it.

But for me, there is one thing missing. We don’t invite Jesus into it.

This isn’t an interfaith gathering. We are refugees from church, remember? We are people who left church because we couldn’t find Jesus there. While many of us think that Buddha and Rumi are enlightened beings and we like to share their quotes, we are still afraid in these gatherings to invite Jesus into it.

Why is this? Have we thrown out the baby with the bathwater? Are we afraid to bring Jesus into our circle because we associate Jesus with the people we left? If people are hateful, they don’t have Jesus. If there is love, then Jesus is there. If there was love at our last church, we would have stayed.

We left because we felt undervalued, underappreciated. We left because we were silenced. We left because we knew that the car that is church was going off the road and to stay in it would have meant we were going to go off the cliff with it. We left because we’d rather walk towards what is right than go quickly towards what isn’t.

So while we are reevaluating what church is, what community is, we aren’t taking the Guide along with us. We aren’t inviting Jesus into our circle, into our hearts.

I’m considering hosting my own circle, and I want to have communion. From all I’ve read of the words of Jesus and from my personal prayer time I’ve realized that you don’t have to be ordained to do this. That is yet another method of controlling people. Jesus didn’t create the institution of priests. Jesus did away with all of that and gave the power to everybody, with no distinctions. Jesus made us all equal.

I’m learning more and more about Judaism, and it is amazing how diluted the Christian communion service is. It is simply a Sabbath meal at the dinner table. It has been boiled down to the bread and the wine. There are two candlesticks as well. The chalice and the paten are the Kiddush cup and the saucer. It is like Christians are playing house. The congregation doesn’t know about the Jewish roots of this ritual.

I’m thinking about making it as inclusive as possible – having kosher grape juice and gluten-free matzo. While I’d love to serve actual wine, it isn’t fair to exclude those people who are in recovery. While I’d love to serve challah, the bread that is served at the Sabbath meal, it isn’t fair to those who are gluten intolerant. And while some churches will have a separate line for those people who are gluten intolerant, and tell those in recovery to let the cup pass them by – that isn’t fair. We all need to share the same bread and wine. When you exclude someone, you are saying they aren’t the same. When someone has to exclude themselves for health reasons, they are making themselves stick out. If the elements of the meal are safe for everybody, then everybody is welcome and everybody is equal.

And that is really important.

Jesus in a box.

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They’ve locked up Jesus.

This isn’t just symbolic. It’s for real, on so many levels.

Look at this.

10

For those people who weren’t raised in a Christian tradition that does this, I’ll explain. This is a box for the reserved sacrament. This is the extra Communion wafers and/or wine. They have extra so that people who take Communion to homebound church members have something that has been blessed by the minister.

They put it in a special box after it has been blessed because they honestly feel that the bread and the wine actually become the body and the blood of Jesus. Literally. Yeah, I know. Kind of creepy, but there you go.

Now, the box has a lock on it, so not just anybody can get to it.

11

These are the same people who put limits on who can take communion. You need to be a member of that denomination or at least baptized as a Christian. They don’t quite get that Jesus didn’t make any such rules.

Jesus is available to all, for free, everywhere and at all times. He isn’t limited or locked up.

The reason they control access is because they want to control Jesus. They think they have some sort of exclusive arrangement with Jesus, that they are “in.” They don’t get that when they start putting limits on who is worthy of receiving Jesus, they aren’t “in” at all. They are as far out as possible. They haven’t gotten the message that Jesus makes everybody equal. With Jesus, everybody is in.

Maybe they are afraid of that. Maybe they fear that if they let “those people” in, whoever they are defined as that week, then that will take away from their own worth. Like the only thing that makes them special is that they make others not special by excluding them.

But this isn’t Jesus. It isn’t who he is. You can’t put limits or locks on Jesus, because he’s so much bigger than that. Death couldn’t stop him. Neither can silly rules.

Imagine their surprise when they realize that Jesus isn’t in the box at all. He never was. He’s out, in the world, in disguise as a shoe repairman, or as a car mechanic, or as a teacher, or as a lawyer. Jesus is hiding in plain sight in every single person who has made a space for Him in their hearts. Jesus is here, right now, with us.

How’s that for thinking outside of the box? There is no box. Jesus is the ultimate escape artist.

Christmas Eve, 2013

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I’ve forgotten what it is like to get my husband out the door to go to church. Is this what it is like to have children?

It has been six months since we last went to church. I’d figured he’d have time to work some of this out. I’ll find other church services and he says they are either too early or too far away or in a bad part of town. Or the place is too big – he’ll feel lost. The place is too small – we’ll stick out.

He says he wants to go to church, but when it comes to actually going to church he drags his feet.

I’m starting to understand why so many people who go to church are married women without their spouses.

It is embarrassing to me to go to church alone. We aren’t supposed to be “unequally yoked” after all. We are supposed to be on the same page. But the more excuses he comes up with and the more he drags his feet, the more I think I need to choose. Him, or God.

It isn’t fair. I use that phrase a lot. I’m tired of being the brave one and trying out new things. I don’t mean divorce. I mean going to church by myself.

I need church. I need community. I need order. Otherwise I drift away. Without making a regular time for God, I start to do my own thing and I’ve learned that my own thing isn’t that great.

I want to go with my husband. I want him to be excited about church. When I left our old church I told him that he could continue to go, and he hasn’t. He stays up late Saturday night and gets up late on Sunday morning.

I don’t think he knows what he wants.

We’d talked about going to church on Christmas Eve. It wasn’t a regular Sunday. It was special. Many people, if they attend church irregularly, will go on Christmas and Easter. It was important to me to do at least this.

I’d found a local church that met in a middle school gym. It seemed OK. Methodist – so it wasn’t Episcopal. I feel like I’ve burned my bridges with the Episcopal Church. Because it didn’t have a building yet, it met some of my requirements for church. I’m wary of churches that spend all their money on a building. Sure, they have a minister, so there is that, but the further away I get from the “normal” church service, the less likely I’m going to be able to get him to go with me.

Mid afternoon on Christmas Eve, I was preparing to go, and he wasn’t. I couldn’t believe that he wasn’t going to go. My whole Christmas plan started to crumble. I didn’t expect him to blow this off. He hadn’t said that he wasn’t going. I’d sent him email reminders. I’d told him about it. It wasn’t a last minute thing. It wasn’t a surprise. Christmas Eve is a given. Just like tax day, you know when it is going to happen.

He saw that this was important to me and he dropped everything and raced around, getting ready. It was a big ordeal. He was running late and a bit crazy. He doesn’t do well with last minute plan changes – even though it wasn’t. I started to wonder what was going on in his head. I started to notice the time ticking by and thinking that maybe I should just go on my own. I’d rather be alone and on time than with him and late, as usual. I’m really getting tired of being late.

Finally we left for the service. It was a quiet drive. And when I say quiet, I don’t mean peaceful. I mean that stony silence two people employ when they realize that whatever they say might cause a fight and a fight is the last thing they want.

Sometimes silence is golden. Sometimes silence is deadly.

We got there and I lost it. We were sitting in the car, in the cold, in the parking lot for the middle school which just happens to be the space for the church.

I sat there and I cried. I cried about loss. I feel like a person who got fired from her job of 20 years. I wasn’t at St. Philip’s for that long, but I was in the Episcopal Church for that long. I put a lot of effort into it for the last three years. I was an acolyte. I was a chalice bearer (you have to be licensed by the Bishop to do that). I trained the chalice bearers. I made the schedule. I trained the lectors. I took Communion to home bound members. I was training to be a deacon.

I was there every week, and one way or another I was serving every week.

I was starting a career with the church, and it was all over in a flash. I had the audacity to wonder out loud if we were doing church according to the way that Jesus meant, and I was stripped of my responsibilities. The priest got really angry at me. A story was invented as a cover. I don’t think anybody cared. A handful of people seemed to have noticed. I think that hurt the most.

All that time and all that work and it was as if nothing happened.

So I feel like someone who was laid off. I’ve been unemployed by church. I’ve gotten bit jobs here and there. (I’ve found alternative “church” experiences) It hasn’t paid the bills. (It hasn’t filled me up.) So now I’m searching for a new job/church and it is scary. I’m searching outside of my field, outside of my experience. (I’ve left the Episcopal Church and possibly church as we know it.)

And I’m scared and exhausted and tired.

I thought about just turning around and going back home. My face was a mess from crying. I wouldn’t know anybody. It will be weird. Church in a gym? How strange is that? Where’s the script? What do I do?

We were there already. I’d feel really bad if we skipped this. It wasn’t what I was used to but it was something. I steeled up my courage, cleaned off my face, and went in.

One advantage is that almost nobody knows me there. So a teary face wouldn’t be a big deal. And church is a place for the hurting. It is a hospital for the soul.

We sat in the bleachers. It was full! Our old church would have dreamed of having that many people for a service. And there was going to be two services.

The service was pleasant. The pastor was funny and kind. He didn’t read from a script. There was Communion, and the words were familiar even though the execution of it wasn’t. I’m not used to Communion with real bread and grape juice, but beggars can’t be choosers you know.

At the end we all sang Silent Night in darkness and lit candles one by one, just like how I like. That never happened in the old church because the head of the altar guild hated dealing with real wax. Fake candles lit by batteries just don’t cut it, in my opinion. But then she is a control freak.

After the service we went to a friend’s house and had a simple supper of chili and cheese and watched a quietly wrong Christmas movie (Rare Exports). They aren’t Christian, but they wanted to share a bit of Christmas with us. It was a pleasant time.

On the way back we were driving by a Catholic Church and saw someone pulling into the lot. Midnight mass, anyone? Scott, raised Catholic, suggested it. I am used to midnight mass starting at 10:30 and ending at midnight, so since it was 11:45 pm I thought we had missed it. Nope. I checked their website using my phone and their service started at midnight. We debated it. It was last minute. We weren’t members. I am not Catholic. It was very late.

Oh. Why not? So we did a U turn and went. The place was packed. We found a seat towards the back. Nobody stopped is and asked if we were members, or even if we were Catholic.

We played along. There is no “Book of Common prayer” like there is in the Episcopal Church. They kind of expect you to know what you are doing. I think this is how they weed out fakers like us. There is a booklet in the pew, but it is hard to understand and it doesn’t have all the bits in it. Fortunately there have been some wording changes to the service so some of it is printed on a handy laminated card. Even the priest was referring to it. If the priest can, we can. We won’t stick out.

Then it came time for Communion. This church is arranged in a semi circle around the altar, so I was interested in watching how the flow of people went. I watched and figured it out and then it was time. Up we went, and the people in the pew next to us stepped aside – they weren’t participating. I was tempted to tell them how to fake being Catholic but then that would out me.

They hadn’t said anything about Communion at the beginning. Not who could, who couldn’t. It is written inside the front page of the booklet in the pew, but they hadn’t even referred to that. I went on the “don’t ask don’t tell” idea, just like when I was in college.

As I was walking up I was really excited. I was glad to take Communion earlier in the gym, but this felt more real to me. Plus, there was the added fear of being caught.

I’ve taken Communion in a Catholic Church before, for many years. I had a friend who swapped out churches with me every other week. One week we’d go to mine, one week to hers. We stopped going when she admitted that she thought I shouldn’t take Communion in her church because I wasn’t Catholic. We stopped being friends then too.

I was in line before Scott, and I put out my hands together, palms up, right over left. The lay minister held up this cube of bread and said the words “the body of Christ, the bread of heaven” and put the cube in my hands. I looked at it. So weird. Dense. Not a wafer at all. An actual chunk of bread. Thick and dark and perfectly cut. It was the size of a die.

I popped it in my mouth and walked towards the chalice bearer. She looked a little foreboding. I thought I wasn’t clear yet. Maybe I was still going to get busted. Plus, I was still dealing with the odd texture of the bread.

Some churches ask you to dip (instinct) the bread/wafer, and some are OK if you sip from the chalice. I saw everybody sip and that is what I prefer. I got to her and looked in the chalice. Red wine. Good choice. Some use white because it is easier on the altar guild if there is a spill. But white ruins the symbolism. This was a paler red. Maybe it was watered down? The lights caught the hammered gold on the chalice. It was quite beautiful and it was all I wanted.

I don’t miss church. I do miss Communion.

In that moment I was allowed to commune. I passed. I faked it.

And in reality, I shouldn’t have to fake it. Jesus didn’t make any such rules. I’ve already written about it and I doubt there will be any change. But you never know. This Francis is a pretty progressive pope.

When it was all over we went out and greeted the priest. I hugged him and wished him a merry Christmas.

I think it has to be hard to be an unmarried priest. To have to work on Christmas and then have to go home to an empty house sounds very sad. Again, this is not a rule Jesus made up. He didn’t even want people to be ordained. We are all ministers.

So we had Christmas, even though it wasn’t what we were used to. Mary and Joseph didn’t expect to become parents like they did either. Alone, in a barn, away from home and help, they welcomed Jesus into the world and into their lives. I think this is what Christmas is about. It isn’t about what we expect, but what we allow. It is about being open to whatever God wants us to experience. God knows what we need far better than what we do. Our job is just to get out of the way and let it happen.

God bless us, every one.