In this alternate reality

I have a new chair at home,
a new old
chair.
It is not lovely,
it is not stylish,
it is not a chair
I would pick out
in a room full of
chairs.

It is
the right
size.
It is
the right
feel.
It is
more than a chair.

My sisters
bought
the chair
for my father,
when my mom
was ill
and declining.
They bought him
the chair
to sit in
by her.
They bought him
the chair
in love
for him.
They bought him
the chair
to care for him
as he cared
for her.

The chair,
I think
is called “mission style,”
thick oak frame
with slats in the arms,
and a soft cushion
for seat and back.
There is a matching ottoman
or footrest as well.

It is
a chair,
my sisters knew,
our father’s simple tastes
and humble desires
would accept,
and in it
his lanky
Lincoln-esque frame
would find its peace and
welcome.

Many a visit
in the years after my mother
died,
I watched my father
fall asleep in that chair,
the wings of a
newspaper,
history tome or
biography
spread across his lap
like a blanket for the infirm.

Years passed,
my tall father shrank,
his skin
thinned clear like onion paper,
and the Brill Cream white hair,
for nearly a century
combed meticulously Gary Cooper-style
back across his scull,
was often out of place.

Then,
for ten days
I sat in
that chair
holding my father’s hand,
talking to him,
watching him struggle
for life
or death,
(how can we ever be sure)?
I sat in
that chair
watching my sister’s cry,
watching my brother try not to cry,
watching myself
struggling to be a brother
and a son,
not a priest.

And now,
I sit in
that chair
in my own home…
and it is not
a chair.

How can
a chair
not be a chair?
How can
bread
not be bread?
Sunday
after Sunday,
Christmas
after Christmas,
Easter
after Easter,
you walk up that aisle
toward
bread.

You walk up that aisle
not knowing
where to put your hands:
at your side,
folded in front,
in your pockets,
holding them behind,
arms crossed in front?

Week after
week,
month after
month,
year after
year
you walk up that aisle
feeling nothing
sometimes,
sometimes feeling
grief,
sometimes
pain,
sometimes
silly.

Time after
time,
rote
or self-conscious,
grateful
or desperate,
ordinary
or extraordinary,
you come to the bread
and you bring to it
the story
of your life.

The week
when you hurt so much
you thought you would die.

The week
when your grief was so fresh
the bread nearly stuck in your throat.

The week
a friend came and you felt happy
but self-conscious
when they came to Communion
and they stood next
to you.

The week
after you got home from your honeymoon,
and for the first time you were back
in this place
where you were just married.

The week
you first brought your baby
to church, still
uncertain whether
you wanted anyone you did not really know
to actually touch him or her.

The week
you didn’t believe anything,
but you came forward anyway
and somehow,
it was okay.

The week
you desperately needed to know
for certain,
there is a God
and that God actually cared
whether you lived or died.

The week
after you first got the diagnosis
and nothing about tomorrow
was clear
or could be taken for granted,
maybe ever again.

All those weeks of living,
the good, the bad, and the ugly,
have been carried
up that aisle,
sometimes like the Green Mile
sometimes like a Jubilee,
but all the time
hauling all that life
and bringing it
to the bread
until…
that bread
is heavy
with your life.
Until…
that bread is
no longer
bread.

Is it God
that makes this bread sacred
or is it your life
that you bring
week after week?

Is it both?

Is it the act of trust
as you bring your life
and plop it down
at the feet of the altar
and ask,
without ever really being
brave enough to actually ask,
and so risk
being told ‘no’
or having nothing actually happen?
Is it that continual act of trust,
or desperation,
mixed with hope
that stirs a fragile bloom
of transformation,
or is it all of that
along with
God acting like an
active ingredient
inside it all?

You don’t know,
and either do I.

You don’t’ know
and you never will.

But you do know,
week after week,
month after month,
year after year,
something happens;
and in those times
when you do not do it any more,
something is missing.

A chair
that is not a chair?
Bread
that is not bread?
What is going on here?
We are all grown ups,
rational adults
who know a thing or two
about “real” life,
about how things “really” are.
What are we doing?

We know that two plus two equals four,
every time.
We know that lions eat gazelles
and we eat cows
and in the end
we all die,
every time.
We know that reality is only “real”
when it is measureable, quantifiable, and replicable
by people who know such things
and otherwise it is not REAL,
anytime.

So what are we doing here,
in this alternate reality,
this parallel universe
in which a chair
is not a chair
and bread
is not bread?

We are holding
two opposing ‘realities’
at one and the same time.
We are living
in double-exposure,
frozen
with two truths
overlapping
and causing us
to be double-minded.

It is not rational,
what we do here.
It is not logical,
what we do here.
It contradicts most of
the rest of our lives –
it is our Double-Life.

Oh sure,
that old time,
Mainline
Traditional
Protestant religion
of the last 200 years
tried to make itself
cozy
with the rational,
logical world.
It tried to make it
sound
reasonable.
It tried to make it
seem reasonable.

It tried to make it
Establishment enough,
Proper enough,
King’s English enough,
Bach and Beethoven enough,
that we could worship
without noticing
the absurdity
of it all.

But all it really took
was Monty Python
to pull down the pants
on that Church
for us to be
embarrassed.
If Monty Python
could so easily de-pants
the absurdity
of the Church acting
as if it is a rational activity
in the 21^st century,
how much more silly
it all seems
in the presence of DNA,
Big Bang,
In vitro,
Entropy,
Molecular,
Nuclear,
Gel electrophoresis…
and all the other high-fluting science stuff like that?

A chair
that is not a chair,
and bread
that is not bread,
is not science
or anything like it.
They are worlds apart
except that
they live
in the same world…
IN US.

I know people,
right here,
that met Jesus
in these pews.
No kidding.

I know people,
right here,
that had a physical healing
in these pews.

I know people,
right here,
that had a prayer answered
in these pews.

I know people,
right here,
who heard something
that needed to hear for years
in these pews.

Their experience
is not proof of anything.
They can’t measure their experience.
They can’t quantify their experience.
They can’t even replicate their experience.
Their experience proves nothing,
except that bread
is sometimes not bread.
It does not prove it,
it evokes it;
it whispers it;
it sings it;
it brushes up against
the back of our neck
like a chill wind
or the unseen-yet-felt-presence
of someone behind us.

There is no magic here.
But there is the vaporous outline
of an alternate reality
that we can enter
when we bring our body
to the bread
week after week,
month after month,
year after year,
time after time.

So what?

Just this.
We change the world,
the world changes,
and we change,
when the bread becomes
more than bread.

Let me repeat that, please,
because this is
everything we know about this parallel universe.

We change the world,
the world changes,
and we change,
when the bread becomes
more than bread.

Science and reason
are excellent
at discerning and describing
the way the world works,
what it is made of,
and how to manipulate it.
But they cannot change,
they cannot transform,
the ordinary
into the sacred.

Nothing
changes the ordinary
into the sacred
but God,
and our participation with God.

The substance of
measureable,
quantifiable,
replicable reality
becomes sacred
only
when we participate
with God
and rehearse
the alternate reality
even as our body and mind
stand within the realm of reason and science.

Only when we rehearse such crazy things
as bread that
is not bread;
acting out the hope of justice
while living in an economy of evil;
sharing our own resources
against a natural inclination to horde;
believing that our own well-being
is inextricably linked to the well-being of others
even while living within a culture of radical individualism.
Only in rehearsing this alternate reality
do we come to see it,
feel it,
be touched by it.
And only in rehearsing it,
does it come among us
and change us
and change the world around us.
It is absolutely NUTS!
Crazy, I‘m telling you.
No one in their right, reasonable mind
would actually engage in this behavior
unless,
they have had
the experience
of bread
that is no longer bread.

And now,
if you are crazy enough,
I invite you to come up here
and rehearse
that alternate reality,
by lighting candles
that are not candles but prayers.

Amen.
©R Cameron Miller