Day 14
For me poetry was eucharistic. … It was as if I could eat the poems, like they went into my body. That’s what I mean by eucharistic: somebody else’s passion, suffering, comes into your body and changes you.
-Mary Karr, interviewed by Image in issue 56
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At church today, I hold the chalices of wine and juice during Eucharist. (I had a feeling Phil was going to ask me; I was sitting front and center with a sad glow to my face.)
How messy Communion is!
For the little ones, I give juice from the handmade ceramic chalice. I bend down low for some. “The cup of salvation.” They dunk and linger, usually. Whole hands are baptized in the sugary bath.
For the adults, I give wine. “The cup of salvation.” They respond, often, “Thanks be to God” or “Amen.”
By the end, my fingers are sticky with the blood of Christ, the cup of salvation, the New Covenant. The gluten-free body of Christ sticks to the roof of my mouth.
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For the past week, my moods are extreme highs and lows. The highs are great, of course. I am excited to be graduating; I’m excited for change and adulthood and opportunity. The lows are awful. It’s just that I want my memories with Nate to remain untainted; I don’t want them to end. I keep thinking about my birthday trip to the rainforest, how much fun we had, how adult I felt to be on vacation with my lover.
Last Sunday I read a bit from Kathleen Norris about her reflections on Lamentations. She said it’s important to remember that God’s love is both everlasting and daily. It’s not just that God will be with me forever (unlike this boyfriend of mine); but God is there every day and in the everyday.
What saddens me most about this breakup, I think, is not having someone to wait for in the evenings, to cook dinner for, to dress up for, someone to watch movies with. The everyday things are what I already miss, not those bigger, oh, I want someone to grow old with! things. Maybe those tears will come later.
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I was thinking today why I chose to say “the cup of salvation” when offering the wine. There are plenty of things you can stay instead: his blood shed for you, the blood of Christ. But I like the one full of hope, the one that says there’s more than what’s before me. There’s a deeper, truer story that I am a part of. “Everything will be OK.”
I know this is true, and I love it. But I’m also frustrated with the everydayness of my grief. I don’t need a far-off God or a future hope–I need something right now.
I need the love of my community, the calming movement of the Spirit.
June 22, 2014