Oh dear. Once again I've missed my self-imposed target of two blog posts per week. And this time I can't blame my vulva.
I blame Mitt Romney.
OK, I admit he probably didn't set out to sabotage my blog, but nevertheless that is what transpired. After That Debate, after Obama just stood there as Lie after Lie after Lie spewed forth from that horrid J. C. Penney-model-man's mouth. . . well, Things Got Difficult.
I am in a fragile state, dammit. Walking on the precipice of depression, just barely holding my own as I step gingerly through the minefield of professional failure, personal lacklusterdom, parental terror, and general middle-aged oh-dear-God-is-that-really me crisis. I do not need, I cannot cope with, a looming political apocalypse.
So I didn't. I withdrew into a total funk. But I am, slowly, bit by horrendous old-lady bit, emerging from my funk. And, weirdly, it is all due to Sunday's Communion (aka the Lord's Supper, Mass, Eucharist, Love Feast, that weird semi-cannibalistic thing Christians do). I'm still amazed. I mean, who really expects Grace to come washing in via something as standard, as orthodox, as a communion service?
Maybe the key thing is that it wasn't a very standard communion service, at least not by Presbyterian standards. My church is in the midst of massive renovations and so we are now meeting not in our sanctuary but in our "fellowship hall." We sit in stackable chairs in a multi-purpose room, devoid of all aesthetic beauty, acoustic utility, or liturgical symbolism. In this room, Communion Sunday presents some logistical challenges. See, the thing is, we Presbyterians, we usually do communion in one of two ways: We sit in our pews and pass around heavy trays laden with individual teeny-tiny cups of wine and torn-up little itty-bitty pieces of bread, or we process to the front for "intinction." (Intinction means you stand in line--kind of like you're a Catholic except you don't fold your hands in front of you, unless you're an ex-Catholic; born-and-bred Presbyterians keep their hands swinging by their sides to show their Protestant liberty from papist tyranny--and when you get to the front, you tear off a piece of bread from a common loaf and dip it in a common cup. You eat the intincted bread. You sit back down.)
But in our temporary fellowship hall accommodation, neither of our usual communion procedures would serve: No little circular cup holders in which to place our empty communion glasses, no wide aisles in which to process for "intinction." The powers-that-be, then, decided on a new format; a big loaf of bread, wrapped in towel, and a large common cup of wine, to be passed down each row. As you received the bread, you were to tear off a large hunk, dip it in the wine, and ingest. Then pass the bread and wine to the person sitting next to you and say "The body of Christ, broken for you. The blood of Christ, shed for you." Okey dokey.
Except for a slight problem: If you stick a large hunk-o-wine-dipped-bread in your mouth, it is then very difficult to say, "The body of Christ" etc. So there we were, good Presbyterians all, trying desperately to mind our table manners and not talk with our mouths full, yet to be liturgically correct and not just sling along the bread and wine without the proper blessing as if it were just ordinary ol' white bread and screwtop red wine.
And as I watched this ridiculous scene repeated, pew by pew, Presbyterian by Presbyterian, all these wonderful souls endeavoring to negotiate between liturgy and etiquette, to chew and to swallow and to bless all at the same time, suddenly I saw God--God stuffed in the mouths of mannerly Presbyterians.
God of the drips and the crumbs and the choking coughs and the awkward giggles.
God of the white bread and screwtop wine.
God of the stackable chairs and multi-purpose rooms.
God of the professional failure, the lackluster personality, the terrified parent.
God of the middle-aged.
God of the politically weary.
God of the frightened and the funked.
God of me.
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