I lifted my plastic cup out of the brass communion tray as it passed by. I was sitting in an ordinary folding chair, beside ordinary people, just an ordinary kid. Then came the stonewheat cracker shards in a shiny silver tray, and I wondered why such ordinary things, a dry cracker, a bit of dull grape juice, hardly even a Sunday school snack, required such fancy dishes. We waited until everyone had their bit, and then the leader prayed, we chewed on cue, we drank on cue, we passed our empty cups to the end of the aisle for collection, repetitive cicada clicking of empty glasses fitting together. I was still hungry. Maybe we all were.
I spooned beans onto a paper plate, passed it across the table to the man on the other side. There had already been a fight over unfair portions, so I was careful to scoop the exact amount. Darkness was thick on the downtown Eastside, I was sixteen, far from home, and after I finished my shift of serving meals to the homeless and poor, I took my plate, sat on the curb, and we all ate together.
We gathered with the American ex-pats for Thanksgiving. Someone cooked a turkey, the married couples brought covered dishes, the singles brought store-bought pies. We each presented a bottle of cheap wine as cover charge. We sprawled on thrift store furniture, told our stories about how we came to be eating dry turkey in Vancouver for Thanksgiving, the men had seminary beards. A guy from Georgia pulled out an elaborate hookah, and I raised my eyebrows to my husband, I wasn’t planning on smoking pot tonight, darling? But no, it was just apple-tobacco from Turkey, and then they all started to tell stories about their world travels, about the places they met God, about good dark coffee, and smuggled hookahs. We prayed, and we sat in silence, drinking wine, eating bad pie. This is the Body broken, someone said, passing the bread back over the couch to me, and I received.
I stepped up to the altar of this little stone church in the heart of the city. The priest tore a chunk of bread from the loaf behind her, dipped it into a chalice of port, I opened my mouth, vulnerable, she placed the sacrament gently against my tongue. This is the body of Christ broken for you, this is the blood of Christ poured out for you, she whispered. I closed my mouth, sucked the wine out of the spongey texture, walked back to my spot in the back, still chewing. I kept coming back, every Thursday, for Eucharist, just another charismatic kid with doubts and questions on the Canterbury trail, crying quiet beside the candles, praying in tongues at the back pew, beside the young mothers, the backslidden, the tourists, the lonely, the sinful, all of us that didn’t think we belonged up close to the altar of bread and wine. But their table was open to us all, they fed me.
I made a meal in my own kitchen, for my own self, right from scratch. I rolled out pizza dough, flour flying, and I grated carrots, sprinkled herbs, I littered the kitchen counters with dirty dishes and mess. I listened to music, louder than I do when the tinies are all here, underfoot, their cacophony of small souls growing up is usually enough noise for me, but today, I put on some Patty Griffin, it was better than church with the windows open. I’m still learning to blur the lines between worship and work. Then I washed each plate and spoon, like a sacrament, and I sat at the table by myself to eat my good labour, I picked up my blue wine glass filled with Diet Coke, and I toasted the silent companions around me, the great cloud of witnesses that came before, and the beautiful loneliness of the quiet I enjoy, I ate and I drank, and it was enough.
This past Sunday, I stood beside my tall husband in a school gym, his arm resting easy across my shoulders. We held a piece of bread, and a cup of grape juice each. He said quietly, this is the body broken for you, and I said, this is His body, broken for you, and we both chewed the wheat bread, honey underneath, and we swallowed. He said, this is the blood spilled for you, and I said, this is His blood spilled for you, and we tipped those tiny glasses up, chins to the fluorescent lights, throats exposed, and we swallowed, priests together. Around the room, ordinary people prayed for each other, just ordinary prayers without approval or investiture or holy oils, just a community, gathered, eating, praying. Our pastor said into the microphone, You’re welcome at our table, and a few more people went up to grab their bread, their juice, we were turning to each other for the prayers, for the sacred words.
So, are we taking communion? or living communion? or partaking? or participating? or receiving? or simply eating together? Sometimes I’m pretty sure that the Lord’s Supper affirms my identity, it’s a feast for my body and my soul, other times it’s just crackers and juice and ritual, and then holy communion arrives when I least expect, on street curbs and folding chairs, pews and altars, take and eat.
Hi Sarah, Your writing is beautiful! I especially love your last line that says “and then holy communion arrives when I least expect, on street curbs and folding chairs, pews and altars, take and eat.” What wisdom and insight. Thank you for sharing.
i’ve been thinking a lot about communion lately, reading “take this bread” – if you haven’t i think you’d like it! my faith journey is all tied up in the table and i can’t shake it. powerful words, my friend.
Yes! I just did a week of my favourite books over my place and that was one of them, actually! I think we need more faith memoirs with the f-word in them.
dang it. now you know i didn’t get to that post – vacation guilt setting in. need to make a note of the others
Ha! No guilt, baby! Vacation trumps all.
Sarah, you’re killing me with book recommendations because the list I keep of books to read is getting so long I’ll be buried under words and I LOVE DYING THIS WAY.
abby, if that book is doubly recommended and one of the people is you and the other is Sarah I’m probably going to read it in one sitting.
xo
In the moment of communion, I’m often struck by the unifying act of sharing bread from the same loaf or at least crackers from the same box. There’s a leveling that takes place when we share communion together. And beyond the unity with one another, we’re also taking our place alongside the historic church. Some days I just see crackers and then other days it really is a miracle.
Yes, I love the sharing from the same source. (You should have seen Brian when I mentioned I was writing a short essay on communion. He’s pulling out Stan Grenz, primers on Greek, lamenting, assigning chapters, it was hilarious. But even if its not properly footnooted, I think we all know that it is sometimes a miracle.
What a beautiful story about communion, Sarah. Since I was raised Catholic, the Eucharist is very important to me and like you said — sacred in sometimes the most ordinary way. I’m still wrestling with whether communion at our nondenominational church fills me spiritually the same as in Mass, but this much I know is true — breaking bread and sharing the cup together is what we are called to do in remembrance of the One who broke his Body and shed his Blood.
Yes. So true.
As a fellow reader, I gravitate towards strong senses of place. I grew up with little plastic cups and uniform little slivers of white cracker (dressed up so ornate), but I longed for the Holy Mystery, the ancient traditions of communion. Now, like you, I am beginning to recognize the sense of place in my own upbringing, and claim that for a richer and wider future. You are just the best, you know?
I know that we are kindreds, DL, clearly.
Communion is such an interesting thing…I’ve never belonged to a church that took it weekly and for some friends this is a huge “discussion” topic. I can remember the quietness of my childhood church during Communion. There was a beautiful reverence that I understood, even as a child. But I’m not sure I really felt much emotion or connectedness to God and Jesus’ sacrifice until more recently. With that said, I never considered the fact that I began my Communion journey in a way of taking or the fact that I’m just now beginning to have a spirit of living/participating Communion. Good stuff to mull over!
Thanks so much Sarah for sharing this beautiful piece… some of my most incredible Sacramental experiences have happened in hospitals, during deployments (US Air Force), and in the field during training exercises… my most incredible experience is when my now fiancee shared the bread and the cup during the morning Communion Service following a silent retreat during Cursillo… her first words to me (after a brief greeting the afternoon before)? Michael, this is the body of Christ, broken for you… this is the cup of salvation, for you… we will celebrate the Sacrament at our wedding next year when we serve our guests… thanks again for sharing… it arrives when you least expect it
Silly me… my fiancee is Denise!
Yes, yes, and yes. I’ve had these moments too. Communion is so beautiful, it sometimes makes me cry. I feel fortunate to have experienced so many different kinds of communion over the years. Thanks for this piece.
What a redeeming way to see all the various way communion is taken. I really struggle with it. I think I respond a lot more to sensory and sacramental forms of worship, so the once a month, ‘the table is up front’ type of communion always leaves me wanting. We each take in alone, silently. And now, after all these years of taking the sacrament in a non-religious way, I don’t know that I could turn to my husband and say, this is the body and blood…I wouldn’t have even known to say that before this. And yet I long for that kind of depth and reverence. This is challenging me to rethink my feelings towards the way communion is ‘celebrated’ in our church…maybe I can dig some depth out of our monthly ritual, after all.
I have a complicated relationship with communion, something I haven’t overly explored. But the way you’ve described it, Sarah, I felt something ease within me.
Awesome.
Thanks for sharing.
Oooh, the mystic Sarah rises here… I always enjoy her when she surfaces. Yes, sharing the bread, the cup – this takes many forms, in many settings. I am a bit more of a traditionalist than you, I suppose, because I truly do want the words spoken – the beautiful, ancient words that millions of saints have heard and shared over the centuries. I visited a church where the lead pastor said something like, “You know what we do here very week. Get yourselves ready.” And then he left the room! Slowly, others around us began to line up and go forward for cups of juice and paper plates with broken crackers – no one giving it to anyone, no one receiving it from anyone. I honestly felt almost violated in that service. Too strong a response – yes, I’m guilty. But it felt hollow somehow, like something really important was missing. My very favorite is intinction – like you experienced in the ‘high’ church – but with each communicant tearing off the chunk or picking up the piece and dipping it as the words are spoken over them. There is both giving and receiving there – and I love being on both ends of that equation. Thanks for these good thoughts, Sarah. As I said, I do love to see this side of you.
I know this is typically where the author responds so forgive me if I am being too forward landing a personal response in reserved space. I never read others responses afraid I will confuse their words with my own. But today, my eye landed here on you Diana. Your words “There is both giving and receiving there – and I love being on both ends of that equation.” I myself have not experienced communion this way in a church. It sounds both traditional and beautiful. I am a believer that all tradition is not bad. Thank you for such a beautiful response. It touched me, your words, the way you expressed them.
Thanks, Jennifer, for your kind words – and for taking the time to leave them.
sarah i cannot get enough of your words! i so long for this. real, genuine, raw, i ache for it. thank you for writing.
You spoke what my soul has been feeling so beautifully. Thank you.
Profoundly beautiful.
What else could emerge from such a profoundly beautiful soul as Sarah?
Thank you for this post. You have given me much to think about and I like that about you. I think you are so right when you say “Sometimes I’m pretty sure that the Lord’s Supper affirms my identity, it’s a feast for my body and my soul, other times it’s just crackers and juice and ritual, and then holy communion arrives when I least expect, on street curbs and folding chairs, pews and altars, take and eat.” It does not have to always be one way or the other. I think we must allow each moment to be what it is. Thank you for sharing!