Not always 'Linear'

The pizza was the bread, and the wine completed the sacrament I was taking after more than a year since I took my last. The hymn, “At the moment of surrender”; the icons provided by a Dutch photographer.

I was in the midst of seeking Him in a Church called Home, but not yet welcomed back, it had been longer than is comfortable since I took my last communion. I’ve been hungry, and I’ve been thirsty.

And I’ve been at war.

I’ve said to others, I envy Job. Why would anyone, though, envy a man beset by pain on every side? Because he overcame. With God by his side—by placing himself by His side—he overcame.

My son’s father wonders, though not explicitly, how I would pursue a faith he believes is constricting. To begin, I do not find it a trap. I see doors more widely open, and a true sense of reverence for the One with Whom I’m at war. There’s a greater, more humble sense of His grace and of His mystery. And those whose faith is great are not the ones, necessarily, whose lives are squeaky clean and faith unquestioning. But quite the opposite.

That not to say the appeal of coming Home is that it’s easier to live there. But quite the opposite: It forces one to confront all that is uncomfortable about belief. It forces one to relinquish control. To accept that what we think is, is not necessarily so.

And so, He made my Grenache into wine, my pizza dough into bread—and once again confounded my belief, my doubt, my war, and held His arms more widely open again.

And so I continue to walk toward Home, where once again, I can drink of the wine and the bread of His promise.