PeaceBang
The manic mind of the minister -- Auntie Mame Meets Cotton Mather. Blogging about Unitarian Universalism, UU Christian spiritual practice, occasional cultural and political ravings, and the inner life of ministry. PeaceBang is the alter ego of a small town pastor serving an historic New England Unitarian Universalist congregation.
Take This Bread: Anticipatory Review
July 9, 2007 on 4:42 pm | In Inspirations, Shout-Outs |My heart is thumping. It always does when especially cool convergences occur.
Just two weekends ago I attended worship at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Portland, Oregon. I spent a bunch of money in their bookstore, but I didn’t buy the book that most interested me because it was a hardcover and my luggage was already full to bursting. I decided to buy it at home.
So today, outta nowhere and apropos of nothing, I get an e-mail from a woman named Sara Miles saying that she’s a fan of this blog and an admirer of my writing and she’d like to send me a copy of her book.
After I check her web site I realize, holy cow, this is the author of the book I couldn’t put down in Portland! It’s called Take This Bread: A Radical Conversion. Well, now I really can’t WAIT to read it.
Serendipitalicious.
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Sara’s essay on the gospel lectionary was featured at Textweek last week…in case you didn’t see it:
http://www.journeywithjesus.net/Essays/20070702JJ.shtml
Was thinking about getting the book, too, after reading the essay!
Comment by karla — July 9, 2007 #
That book sounds very good. Thanks for the recommendation!
Comment by Jan — July 9, 2007 #
What a wonderful convergence of people, needs, and gifts
Comment by Peregrinato — July 10, 2007 #
I’ve been reading some of your posts. I’m not a Christian; I am a Pagan UU. Some of the things you’ve written about strike a chord and longing in me from a different perspective. Someday I hope to get a blog going, but it would be very different from many UU blogs. Right now I don’t know how to connect it to UUpdates.
Anyway, I was a Catholic when I was a teenager, and receiving communion was a very special private meaningful act for me. It was a time when the Spirit (I called it God or Jesus at the time) was very close to me, inside me, and I was soothed and had a connection to something greater than me that helped me to endure my childhood.
Upon graduation from college, I walked away from Catholicism because I couldn’t accept the dogmas and the Church’s teachings about sexuality. All of this is for future postings. I did miss communion. I did not and do not believe in transubstantiation.
During the next years I freely went into Catholic churches and received communion without feeling guilty about not going to confession. I was introduced to the UU denomination in 1967 and discovered feminist spirituality in the 70s and 80s, went to a Cakes for the Queen of Heaven class, and discovered the Reclaiming collective started by Starhawk, the pagan teacher. I also spent several years attending the Metropolitan Community Church for LGBTQ people.
MCC distributes communion in a lovely way. You go up, receive it and the person holds you lightly and gives you healing words. Once the minister let me consecrate the bread and juice during a Sunday morning service to celebrate an important anniversary in my life. Lay people in MCC can stand on the altar and do the consecration.
My need for communion continues. It has become a special sharing of bread and wine or juice among a community of people that has been blessed in some way.
The UU minister, Rev. Mark Belletini, once gave a class about the symbolic language of communion explaining what the words meant and where they came from in the original Aramaic (sp?). I was fascinated; don’t ask me anything about it. I don’t remember anything except him talking about the meaning of the word “blood.”
In past years a small group of UUs at my church have celebrated communion once a month. It isn’t happening right now. I might bring it up in the future.
To get my need met when I’m physically able, I will walk to the nearest Episcopal church to receive it and get myself blessed with that heavenly scented thick oil.
I know this is a long comment, but when you mentioned the book above I just had to write. Some of what you’ve written in your last few posts really raises feelings, thoughts and needs in me.
Blessings
Pythia
Comment by Pythia — July 10, 2007 #
Hey PB - I recently read Sara’s book, and it is totally amazing. One of the best things I’ve read in a long time.
Comment by John Plummer — July 10, 2007 #
Hi Pythia, we love hearing your story. Please don’t apologize for it being long. I look forward to seeing your blog when it comes out. Let me know.
Blessings, PB
Comment by PeaceBang — July 10, 2007 #
“Take This Bread” is probably the most compelling spiritual autobiography I have ever read.
I snapped it up as soon as it came out — despite my policy about waiting for the paperback. There are so many resonances for me as a queer 21st century Christian who had been radicalized in the peace, gay and AIDS activist movements of the 80s and early 90s. Knowing that it was written by a journalist whose work I had read with enthusiasm (in Out, NYT Magazine, and elsewhere) and was essentially the story of how communion drew her into Christian community (my way in, too) made me breathless. Another Christian’s story that parallels mine! Finally!
I recently effused about this memoir with a ministerial search committee, only to discover that Sara Miles’ mother-in-law lives in the same town as this church. Now, as it happens, I am going to this town. Serendipitalicious indeed!
Comment by Peter B — July 10, 2007 #
Since I read its first chapter at Killing the Buddha, I’ve given Take This Bread as a gift to several more-Christian-leaning-than-me friends. I’ve gotten rave reviews back from them.
Maybe one of them will lend it to me….
Comment by Jay — July 10, 2007 #