Daniel meeter8/17/2023 ![]() One of our Methodists refused to take communion from the hand of an elder (who had been Presbyterian). In my third church we had Gujarati immigrants both Methodist and Presbyterian. He was conservative, and orthodox, and a very loving man. He was fastidious, even with his dairy cows. After they were done serving, Rik would compose his hands and mouth to gather his body back together, as if he were grooming himself, but there were no crumbs on him. Rik with his eyes down but in confidence, Wynand calm and businesslike as if he did it every day, Pieter nervously checking from side to side, and Maarten with his face shining and his eyes wide open to engage the congregation. I remember in my second church how the elders would take the trays of bread and juice. Most Sundays our priest just does it unobtrusively as we get ready for the final hymn. I think of that scene with Peter Ustinov: “Will you stop bobbing your head!” The Anglican sacred laundry. I hated the way that seminarian made such a show of cleaning the chalice and paten after communion, while we were kneeling in our pews, and his repeated bowing to the priest when she came with the pyx and then with the cruet of water and then with the little towel. When he gets up from his seat to read the Prayers of the People he holds his right shoulder back a little, and I don’t know why. He used to sit in the front pew with his mother, who was also tall and thin, but then she died ten years ago, so now he sits up in the chancel. He slightly and stiffly wobbles his head from side to side whenever the Holy approaches him. ![]() He’ll do it again behind the altar when he gets the first communion from the priest. I love the way that Mark, the warden, who serves as deacon, unconsciously wipes his right knuckle across his cheek the same way every week when he comes out front to get the offering. But she keeps her eyes down, through her brown glasses, looking at the text and never at us. But she stands squarely at the lectern, and we can always hear her clearly because she reads with her face up. I’ve been watching her for years, and now she too has to walk her hands along the pew ends to keep her balance. I know the way that Marilyn will go up front to read the First Lesson, which is always hers. When I’m at the cottage by myself, I sit with him in his pew, in the place where his wife Isabel sat before she died last year, and then I follow him up the aisle, and he limps a little, using the pew backs as a handrail. ![]() I kneel as he stands next to me, stocky, ruddy, ancient, undistracted, with his hands cupped out and his eyes half closed. I love the way that Levi takes communion at the rail. She lunges from her branch above the water to snatch what I can’t see, or plunges down and curls around the bug she catches. I love the way the kingbird feeds by acrobatics from the trees along the lake.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply.AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |