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“The Eucharist is the bread of sinners, not a reward of saints.” – Pope Francis
We’re soaking in it —
not just our hands.
Steeped sinners all,
we gather, at table
for what will not fail us.
Christ’s broken bones hold no reproach.
It is invitation without exclusion.
All hands may have the crust
to touch both body and blood.
I would not stop them, for I am they, too.
And you? Come out from behind your politics
and know what time and hierarchy have hidden:
He who broke bread with Judas
would not turn him from the table.
Whether you are trying to tell your own story or share life’s absurdities, one of the most vital skills we posess is our ability to listen to each other. It really doesn’t matter what I’m trying to communicate if no one will listen.
And a big part of listening is responding. It can be a simple nod of your head. “Yes, I hear you.” Or a shrug. “I don’t have a clue.” Or, if someone isn’t making sense, it might mean asking a question.
One day last week, I got a cryptic text. “Is it okay if we use items from the craft fair?” Since I’m in charge of part of the church craft fair, I knew this was most likely from a church member. But who? All I had was a number.
“I could text back – who is this?” I said aloud.
“That would be rude,” said my husband.
“Asking who it is would be rude?”
He nodded.
Pfft. How could asking for more info be rude? Nope. If I wanted to be rude, I’d just ignore it. Instead I clicked the phone icon.
In moments, Caryn and I were laughing. “Your name is in my phone. Why wouldn’t my phone tell you who was calling?”
In a few moments, I had saved her number with her name and I knew what she needed. We discussed work and her daughter’s health problems. I promised to continue praying.
Whenever we don’t agree with someone or don’t immediately understand what they are saying, it is easy to pull back and ignore them. Whatever. Not my problem. And that’s on a good day. On a bad day we argue and we shut each other down.
But God gave us ears to hear not only his word but each other. It doesn’t mean we have to agree with each other about everything, but it only takes a moment to listen and to nod. “I hear you. I hear what you’re saying.”
–SueBE
My husband and I had just parked our car at the grocery store. As I got out of the car, I glanced into the car next to me. A quite normal-looking man (conservative haircut, wire glasses) had a large can of baked beans in one hand; with the other, he was scooping beans out of the can and into his mouth.
I was a little gobsmacked by this.
Two days later, still processing the incident, my husband asked where I wanted to eat lunch. “I don’t know,” I said. “We could drive to the grocery store and eat baked beans out the can with our fingers.” Deadpan, my husband looked straight into my eyes and replied, “We would need a nicer car.”
Sometimes life is so absurd, you just have to laugh.
Funny thing, life.
It hands you a joke
disguised as drama,
as awkward as an equine in an overcoat
trying to check out a book at the library.
You could weep at the incongruity,
or seize on the strangeness
and laugh yourself hoarse.
Stop trying to solve things.
Throw back your head.
Throw up your arms. Give in to the odd experiment
that is the universe.
When you’re in on the joke,
God will entrust you with things
you’re too wise to know now.
As I was reading an article about the extinction of homo erectus, I realized that somebody is going to tell your story one day, long after you’re gone, and they may get it wrong.
A group of archaeologists at Australian National University who were researching the species, Homo erectus, concluded that the reason they became extinct is that they were lazy.
“They really don’t seem to have been pushing themselves,” said Dr. Ceri Shipton, lead researcher behind the new theory, in a press release. “I don’t get the sense they were explorers looking over the horizon. They didn’t have that same sense of wonder that we have.”
Retroactive snark. That’s a new one! Even if you asked Judge Judy for a ruling on Homo erectus, I’ll bet she’d take a pass. “Throw rocks at people from the stone age? Not me, pal.”
For a group of scientists, these folks seem awfully petty. But I suppose pettiness has been around since the dawn of time. In fact, even cavemen must have had to deal with critics. “That not how you make fire, Irv. Must put more oomph into it.”
The way the Homo erectus story was framed also varied, with some online outlets reporting it as fact, and others as conjecture. One conservative UK tabloid even ran the headline, “Homo erectus went extinct because they were lazy!” Yikes!
So, don’t wait for anyone else to tell the world who you are and what you stand for. Tell your own tale now, while you still can. Don’t wait until you’re a fossil in a field only to have some snarky archaeologist (snarkyologist?) talk smack about you. Tell it in living color, in gruesome detail, in pretty pictures, in mellifluous music, in your own way. Then, when you’re an ancient artifact, you’ll give that snarkyologist who finds you a lot to talk about.
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