Coming to the front of church has always made me uneasy. With Fundamentalists it's the Call. I am not ready to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord-and-Personal-Savior. At the milder Episcopal Church, it's the Eucharist.
The Bob Eucharist. I am unsettled by doubt.
Here's the problem. When we die, I believe, our run ends. Call it soul or spirit or non-particle matter but whatever was inhabiting our body after we die is also ... well ... dead. Gone. Kaput.
Maybe we live on in the memory of others. Or maybe we survive by our good works. Perhaps there is some universal vibration that we humans can only begin to understand. But Pearly Gates? A choir of angels? Jesus in a Devo jumpsuit? All too cartoonish.
And yet the ceremony of communion moves me deeply. I have always been a sucker for narrative. If I believe in anything, it is Story.
So can I accept the body of Christ as metaphor? How much story should I let myself swallow?
Really. Help me out America. Let me know what you think. What are the boundaries between ceremony and belief?
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My simplified opinion is that I think the boundary between ceremony and belief is time. A moment versus always.
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