Jesus must’ve liked Welch’s.
When I was less than 10, I used to help my mom prepare communion in that tiny room behind the stage. This was pre-remodel (and pre-hideous blue wall) when the area of the sanctuary beyond the organ and choir loft, beyond the special seating for the pastors, was mostly pitch black all the time and filled with clutter and useful hiding spots.
Mom would fill the tiny glass cups with Welch’s grape juice using a tiny watering can. The watering can had been my Grandmother’s idea–a novel solution before the invention of more widely available communion-specific technology. She’d fill the cups, and mop up the trays where juice would inevitably be spilled. She’d let me fill the bread trays, and I’d sneak bites of tiny, dry bread when she wasn’t looking. To this day I still think those weird wafers are deliciousness.
When I was quite young and purloining leavened bread, I thought that communion was some bizarre and magical ritual whose significance I couldn’t rightly understand. I’ve since spent 10 years in Bible College and a Seminary trying to marry reason and ritual, and have found, comfortingly, that the two don’t fully mix or meld. There are some things about our faith which are truly as weird and wonderful as they initially appear to our juvenile minds.
So although my induction into the mysteries of the eucharist began in a dark closet-like room accompanied by watering cans and larceny, I hope I never lose the strange fascination those early experiences helped impose on the mystery of bread and wine, and body and blood.
September 25th, 2007 at 10:01 pm
I remember the very watering can of which you speak (a 70′s-esque avocado green color I think…) Yes, things have changed a bit back stage in that “closet like” area, yet it still fascinates today’s 10 year olds as well (it’s a “real treat” to help return the communion trays to that ‘closet area’ after church on Sunday!)
I, too, remember being a kid and helping my mom fill the trays as well. Ahhh, memories. I appreciate your childhood reflections on church…thanks for sharing
September 26th, 2007 at 7:33 pm
One never knows how important the little things in one’s life really are until your child puts it into prespective for you…What was a bit of a chore that we ladies of the church took turns doing was in reality a very special thing. I got to share it with my children, teaching them about service and duty, and I personally got a great blessing from it. If I was doing the communion prep by myself I liked to think of all the people who might partake of it on Sunday and I would pray that they, the unknown worshipper, would be blessed by this “ritual”. Raise in a church that only took communion every three months I soon learned to love this part of my church life at Downey 1st…in my opinion it is the best part of the service because it is so personal. And now it is special because it is special to my daughter too. Thanks for sharing the closet with me…love Mom
September 28th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
that was really sweet
October 2nd, 2007 at 12:01 pm
Oh the good ole days meandering behind the stage, playing hide n go seek, lazer tag and the likes.