Religion of One

There are two cases of beer and at least one bottle of tequila in the garage fridge with the Aunts' arrival. Gulp - I kid, I kid. The gulps have gone away. I still think about drinking but not in terms of debating over one drink that becomes another and so on. Nah, I think about chugging, inhaling while the desire passes. I heard about a study that mentioned how thinking about eating more, mentally gorging yourself could lead to eating less when presented with actual food. I haven't looked into the statistical significance of this study but still mind-binge and find that it helps. Anyway, I had my first new taste of alcohol yesterday at perhaps 6:15 PM.

I've been raised Catholic and usually go to the less crowded Saturday mass when I'm back in Tennessee. My parents are somewhat active and either serve as ushers or liturgical ministers (the people who hold communion wafers and blessed wine). My Mom was scheduled to be an usher yesterday, but she had just made dinner and was eating dinner with her sisters - this meant that I'd be filling in as usher, although I'd never done it before.

My Dad was also serving as an usher, so I copied his movements. The first task was to hand out the collection baskets after the sermon (all I can remember about the sermon was it had to do with Jesus walking across water - I really have trouble paying attention to sermons). This was easily done, just starting at the front row and following the basket back - I rarely had to touch it since the parishioners had it down. My only other expected duty was to do the same row walking as people got up for communion.

However, in between these two duties, something unexpected happened (I leave it to you to believe what was real and what was imagined). When I brought the collection basket back and the other ushers convened with their offerings, we dumped it into the bigger, collective collection basket. Another usher, a short man with glasses and a nice black moustache, thanked me repeatedly. I think this was because I was the only usher under 40 (in fact, Saturday masses have a dismal showing of young people - it's usually senior citizens and families with small children - it's not a good place to meet women...). Anyway, I was set to go back to my pew when the moustachioed man handed me the golden platter filled with wafers... shit.

I'd forgotten that, after the collection of donations/indulgences/offerings/just-becauses, three ushers walk up to the waiting priest with the wine, wafers, and wealth to be blessed. We three (me, moustachioed man, and plump black lady) marched up in lockstep. I heard pews groan, dentures grind, farts murmur, joints creak, and hymnal pages rasp together - a cadence to our march (think STOMP). It crescendoed as we handed the offering to the priest and flanking acolytes, and then dropped into silence as we three and the three on the altar bowed to one another in unison.

I was last to get communion, since again I had to serve as an unnecessary pew marker for the parishioners getting up first. I had a wad of nicotine gum wedged in my cheek when I placed the wafer on top of my tongue (yes, I've started chewing the gum again although no tobacco products - more on that one later as well). That's how communion goes - wafer first and then wine, body and blood. I debated whether or not I'd be compromising recent changes by drinking from that golden chalice. I looked up beyond the altar at the massive crucifix.

Jesus with his head to the side seemed to shrug. What the hell, this was as good a place as any. Since I was the last, the guy holding the cup told me to finish it off. There were a few drops of red, less than a thimbleful, which I let sit on top of the dissolving wafer in my mouth.

I wouldn't call it a spiritual experience, but it made me think of my need for spiritual experiences. I don't understand either blind devotion or absolute cynicism when it comes to organized religions. You can't unburden or blame everything on them, but they do provide reference points, framework for finding your own beliefs. This also reminded me of a story I wrote four years ago and dug up from my facebook notes, where a retired sniper muses over his religion of one. It was one of three stories that I wrote to deal with an unexpectedly bad experience I had in the mountains during sophomore year of undergrad. Oddly enough, one of the details in this story parallels something that happened to me on an island in Miami. I'm not sure what to make of this, since coincidences shouldn't be confused with connections. I am sure that all my answers won't be found in a church, although I'll probably go next Saturday. I'm also sure that reality without fiction can be a rather brutal place.