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.