Bread and Wine, Cereal and Milk

At my church, communion is offered every week. So this morning, like every other Sunday I'm there, I placed a broken bit of bread on my tongue. Then I sipped grape juice from a tiny plastic cup. I love communion. I love the symbolism, the taste, the smell, and the feel. I love how communion blends together the physical and the spiritual parts of me.

Jesus, when he served unleavened bread and wine to his apostles, told them to remember him when they ate. The bread was to remind them of his body, the wine of his blood. When I read about this quiet, lamp-lit scene, I am struck by the mystery and magnitude of the event. Common foods were made holy by his hands. Everyday elements became sacred.

Ordinary food and drink were consumed, but this was no ordinary meal. No one fed by Jesus that night would ever be the same. Yet, for the rest of their lives they would eat bread. They would drink wine. And when they did so, because of His words, they would be reminded of Him.

I like the idea of something consumed by a regular person on regular days being a repeated reminder of God. Problem is, I don't eat flatbread everyday. I rarely have wine. Unlike the apostles, these are not my everyday foods.

I'll continue taking communion in church. It's important to me. But perhaps even more important is my finding the sacred in the everyday. My personal communion? The foods I eat every day that remind me that God is the beginning and the end, the source of everything good? The ones I try to never eat without thinking of Him?

Not bread and not wine. Rather, cereal and milk, a bowl of Wheaties or Raison Bran and a glass of two percent. Common things, yes.

But made holy by Him.

A Favorite Quote

“Life is like an onion: you peel it off one layer at a time, and sometimes you weep”
Carl Sandburg

When Less Becomes More

I spent much of my twenties and thirties figuring out how to get more stuff. Shopping was one of my favorite forms of recreation back then. I loved snagging bargains on things like clothes and accessories, furniture, antiques, and decorative do-dads for the house.

Then something happened.

I hit my mid-forties. Acquiring more things suddenly lost much of its appeal. The desire for space and order became greater than the quest for more things. I've never enjoyed dusting. I like it even less now. How many sets of dishes can I really enjoy? How many black sweaters does one person need? Will a new kitchen gadget prompt me to be a better cook?

These days I find myself easily passing up items that, in the recent past, I would have coveted, paid for, and hauled to my house. Oh non-materialistic, virtuous me! I could easily hurt myself patting my own back at my new- found concentration on what really matters in life.

Like just-released music, grocery-store flowers for my table, books by my favorite authors, and Starbuck's coffee three times a week. Can't do with out my on-my-way-to-work lattes, now can I?

The uncomfortable truth is I'm not as untied to aquiring stuff as I'd like to believe of myself. I've traded old desires for new ones.

Even though I already really and truly have more than enough

From My Friend J.

I wish you could meet my friend J. He's a cool guy, an excellent hospice nurse, and someone I love talking with about the deeper stuff.

J. has recently gone through some tough times. We were chatting last night and J. told me that even though he's known God and gone to church off and on most all of his life, untill last October his faith had never done that much for him. What happened last fall is that he finally found a church he likes. He and his wife and his two little girls have gone most Sundays ever since. J. says without this change in his life, he doesn't know how he would have made it through this recent rough patch.

"Going to church an hour or so a week makes that much difference?" I said to him last night. We were sitting at the nurse's station halfway through our shift.

"It does. I can't explain it."

"It does for me too" I said. "I used to go to church because I thought something bad would happen to me if I didn't. Now I go because something good happens to me when I do."

J. nodded. He got it. That's the way it is for him too.

Then, a patient's call light rang.

A family member came to the station with a question.

J. Smiled at me.

I smiled at him.

Enough church talk.

We went back to our work.

A Bigger Life

Readers often ask where I come up with the ideas for my books. There's a story behind the birth of every one, and my latest release is no exception.

Two years ago, my daughter received a great hairstyle from a new stylist. It was the desire for a new look that landed me, a few weeks later, in that same stylist's chair. Little did I know when I arrived for my appointment that I was about to meet a young man who would shake up both my writing career and my life.

Paul was twenty-seven years old. He was tall and lean, with arms adorned with colorful tatoos and his head shaved shiny clean. Honestly, I, a middle-aged, mainstream wife and mom, was a bit put off by his appearance. But over the next couple of hours, while he combed, snipped, and colored, Paul told me bits and pieces of his poignant story. His life's journey had so far been punctated with loss after loss, including the very recent death of the mother of his three-year- old son. I was totally captivated and moved by Paul's story. His grief and pain were raw and fresh, yet he did not expect nor desire sympathy or pity.

Leaving the salon, I could not get Paul's voice, story, and spirit out of my head. And when I got home, I could not get him down on paper fast enough. While not in any way a factual account of his life, Paul sparked the idea for A Bigger Life. It is a story told in the first person voice of a straight, male hairstylist who is a single dad, living and working in a small Texas town.

Writing A Bigger Life was a slightly risky departure from my past novels of gentle fiction. Readers of my previous works may be surprised at the style, for this story is PG gritty and unflinchingly real. It has a hopeful ending rather than a happy one.

I hope I've peaked your interest in reading A Bigger Life. It is available in bookstores and online. If you've read it, I'd love to hear your thoughts.

And at a later date, I'll tell you a bit more about my unlikely friend Paul.