Christians as Cannibals

In the church where I grew up, communion was little squares of Ben’s white bread and a small plastic glass of Welch’s grape juice. I remember when I was really young being jealous of everybody who got a special snack in the middle of the service. Jealous enough that, once my parents were done with their grape juice, I used to sick my tongue in to lick up the last little bit of juice.

One particular Good Friday Service, when I was almost through being a teenager, sitting with Optimus Prime, my brother, and various other young guys from the church, and trying to stifle laughter through the entire thing. A woman with terrible terrible hairspray hair had just finished singing a horrible version of some Sandi Patti song, and someone made a joke about the bride of Frankenstein, and that started the chain reaction. It’s amazing how trying to stop laughing because it’s so inappropriate only makes it worse. And just when we thought we had it under control, a pastor with a strong Scottish accent prayed over the communion, and it started all over again.

Pastor Goofy, from the Art Church had some interesting ideas about communion that sort of spiraled out of control. He thought the purpose of communion was to eat together, not just remember the death of Christ. In that sense, he argued, any meal you have with a group of Christians was communion. To illustrate his point, we had communion with coffee and a muffin. Those who weren’t entirely offended just thought it was lame.

The night before I moved to Waterloo, I had communion with Optimus Prime in a rock overlooking the harbour. We had real wine, and French bread. We served each other and said the little “this is my body, which is broken for you…” stuff, but both of us agreed by that point that we had no idea what that actually meant, or if we believed it at all. A wave of fog came across the water and I joked that this is where everything fades to black and the credits come up. I was leaving and this was over. It was a little freaky. I ended up at home that night, with almost a full bottle of wine, and packing yet to do, but I couldn’t leave the wine behind. I decided the best thing to do was finish it off. I would drink it slow, I thought. It would be ok. But since I was an inexperienced drinker, I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into. I spent the next day with my first hangover, in the cab of a pickup truck with my brother and my father.

I stopped taking communion a long time ago. I figured it was dishonest to commemorate something I didn’t really believe in, and that if I did participate dishonestly it would dirty the experience of everyone else around me. Plus, I didn’t want to participate in a religious ritual just because I was embarrassed not to. I was still uncomfortable, so instead of defiantly passing the tray along when I went to church on a communion Sunday, I conveniently left to go to the bathroom. The first time I did this at Wilma’s parent’s church, she was very upset. We were actually at come sort of camp that her church was visiting. I told her I couldn’t do it because I didn’t believe in atonement. That, if I were to take communion, I would have to reinterpret it and have everyone present understand that I was reappropriating the symbols. She went and got two glasses of grape juice and two hunks of break (since in this church people ripped pieces off a huge loaf of bread… interesting symbolism, the church ripping the body of Christ into little bits and consuming it…). We had communion together by a stump overlooking a lake.

This Easter Sunday, I was trapped between my Grandmother and my parents when I suddenly realized there might be communion. We were sitting in the front row, listening to my cousin-in-law Pastor Arthur preach about the deception of pluralism, and I had already gone to the bathroom. I have never told my parents, or any of my extended family that I don’t believe in atonement anymore. They aren’t blind, they see I don’t ever go to church anymore, but at least some of them think I have just backslid, that I still truly believe, I just don’t act it. I prepared myself to come out to my family. Finally, a big holiday controversy that I hear so much about on television and movies. My family never has those, and now I would be the first. I was the official black sheep. And then I realized that there was no communion on Easter Sunday. That was on Good Friday. So my secret was preserved for another day.