1. Bless and sanctify this bread to the souls of all those who partake and especially those few who instead stare down and with one shake of a chin-resting-in-the-palm head send the tray past them, or take the handle and lean across the spread of bench to the old couple half-awake, the woman who looks up startled, eyes red, unfolds herself, and smiles all our heartache. 2. The priest for the water prayer kneels, gray-blond ponytail-tight scalp hovering just above the tray-cloth. Baptized last month, still unsure shaking hands, he clears his raspy throat for courage. Years of drinking, drunk more often than not, face more texture than complexion, crumpled newspaper section of local tragedies that no clean living or priesthood blessings will smooth out in this lifetime, and with a voice that won’t fully scab over, asks God to bless and sanctify this water. This water, he repeats, swallowing audibly, stumbling through that winding sentence of blunt words, nerves and joy shaken and stirred. When the trays return he reaches down, lifts up, and stops. Not the first time he’s measured his worth in the bottom of a cup. Then, face unscrunching into something like a grin, he raises his hand as if to toast the One who bought this round for everybody, each round for all eternity, whose grace is an open tab—and quick as forgiveness knocks back that holy thimble like a shotglass. 3. I know I should have my eyes closed, but it’s hard not to watch Sister Taylor bless the sacrament each Sunday. When the priest kneels down she stands up on the other side of the chapel, in front of the first row where her husband, their kids James and Jasmine, and Rodrigo and Lupita, the other deaf people in the ward, all sit. She stays right on pace with the priest, her mouth and eyebrows moving almost as much as her hands. I’m beginning to understand some sign language just by watching her. Maybe I’ll take it in high school. That means Father, that means souls, and sometimes she dabs her eyes, a quick tap in each corner with one finger of the same hand. Maybe she’s crying, but it could be part of the sign for Jesus. Of her sign for Jesus. 4. Joseph was right about the sacramental wine: beware of any faith you haven’t made yourself. Here are grapes and bottles. Here is time. Here is sabbath after sabbath for your cellar shelf. 5. I ease the cup out, drink, discard, and witness a water-bubble domed over its tray-hole. Buoyant shiny O of supplication, invocation mourning invitation rejoicing: the O in the center of hope. 6. The new priest repeats: “That they may eat it in—” no there’s no it I know it seems like there should be and what difference does it make if eating the bread specifically or just the act of eating is done in remembrance or is the lack of it just to keep us careful when we read it, and he says it again, eat it in remembrance and on the third time I hear it: the body of Thy Son the body of Thy Son the body of Thy Son 7. Can you imagine: Come to my arms, ye blessed. Right now, dust filaments twirling slowly, twinkling in early sunlight through tall glowing curtains, embracing their weightlessness, drifting everywhere but down: yes I can. 8. Bread tray glinting with reverent fluorescence, the deacon offers Christ’s body to the body of Christ, row by row, one by one, then heads out to the foyer, gathering in: teens on phones, parents with toddlers, the man who wears no tie and prefers a comfy armchair to the pews. All have eaten and are filled. Turning back for the chapel the boy glances outside. Brother and Sister Larson totter arm in arm, inch by inch toward the doors. By now, the boy knows, the other deacons are lined up inside, waiting. The whole ward is waiting for the priests, who wait for the deacons, who wait for him, who waits for the Larsons, who have waited on the Lord arm in arm in health and sorrow through two daughters lost in childhood and a grandson by suicide last month, cancer and remission twice, then three missions in sixty-seven married years. Four months from yesterday is Brother Larson’s funeral. Of course the boy doesn’t know this or what to do right now, but his instinct is to bless. He pushes through those doors into a flood of summer, sunlight flashing off his outstretched tray like Ephraim’s horn, gathering in. 9. The Word made flesh made bread, soft white sandwich loaf we suction and pry out of molar-pits with tongues, or in extreme cases, a discreet fingernail, working with the persistence, the precision, the relief of repentance. 10. Without an official component of ritual drama in our sacrament ordinance, I have adopted the weekly struggle between this little girl and her parents. Toddler-tufted in a functional pink dress, she prances and ambles down the aisle, almost losing her balance every fourth step yet still managing to elude their crouched-down-shuffle and furtive swiping for her arm. Those of us with grownup kids revel in the scene, but I understand her parents’ reaction. There’s the fear of our annoyance and judgment, and perhaps a deeper worry that their daughter is not destroying reverence but fulfilling it. She must be stopped before her joy infects our penitence, before we start wondering if all sacrament hymns have to sound funereal. Before she catches us watching her, stops twirling, and gazes back in radiant amusement as if to ask: O you who are redeemed, here to celebrate your redemption: why aren’t you dancing too? 11. Three pews ahead, pudgy hands whack and grip the bench back. A wispy noggin rises, all wobble but the eyes. They fix me with the gaze of God. I grin, frown, furrow, gape, a jack-in-the-box of expressions and…pop! The baby’s face breaks into delight, eyes and mouth wide with silent cackling. Now I too can’t help but smile: pride, this flex of dad skills or simply the thrill of connection, of communion. She is teetering with joy, would have toppled over if not for her vigilant mom. And because I should be thinking about Jesus right now, I bow my head and pray that every once in a while and for no good reason He looks back at me this way. 12. Christmas Day sacrament meeting: mid-ordinance, the traditional mewl and wail of babies in a whole new light, the original light.
Kevin Klein is an elementary teacher and writer from Orem, Utah. His LDS-themed poetry has appeared in Irreantum, Dialogue, and BYU Studies. He’s the author of two picture books, one about the First Vision (Oh How Lovely Was the Morning), and a symphonic, poetic farmyard story titled Showdown Symphony. His family is, among other things, one of his favorite sources of inspiration and feedback.
 | A guest post by
|
Love it!