Communion

Here's a story as we approach All Saints Day . . .

Celtic Christians were people of the land. They were agrarian people but their connection to the land was more than economic. For them, the land on which they lived was sacred. It was as if they were inextricably bound to it. It was the place of family and it was a gift from their Creator. I have places like that for me. Shake Rag, MS is one of them. Every few years I go back to the place where my mother was raised and reminisce about a few acres that I was allowed to roam freely with a single shot shotgun and an old dog named Mike. We took on many dragons and slew them all.

Up the road is Boone’s Chapel Methodist Church. It is the first place that I had a real conversation with God. The story is a bit long for this but at around the age of 10, I became keenly aware that there was a Someone who loved me. Out behind the church is the cemetery. There are over 300 folks buried there and I think I might be related to almost all of them. A couple of years ago I walked the grounds of the cemetery, remembering my grandparents, my aunts and uncles, a cousin who died too soon, and a local TV repairman that often dropped by for Sunday dinner at Mama Bea’s. There were also tables, long tables that stretched out along the side of the church forever. I remember community gatherings on those tables that I know are older than even my memories of them. Fried chicken, corn bread, green beans, tomatoes, coconut cakes, fried corn and giant jars of tea filled every available space. I have to wonder if those tables are still being filled or have all the saints that once gathered around the tables now taken up residence behind the church. Has the community that once broke bread on rough hewn planks now gathered to celebrate communion at the banquet table with our Lord?

That day as I walked and felt the sacredness of the land beneath my feet, I was reminded of that “great cloud of witnesses” that Paul speaks of in Hebrews. They witnessed years ago to a skinny 10 year old about a mystery, about fellowship, simple faith and the importance of community. They witnessed to the next generation about faith and about communion, not from little glass cups and bits of crackers but from big jars of tea and cornbread. It was true communion … Southern style. Thanks be to God.