Vignettes

I saw my first glimmer of acceptance, the final stage of grief, last week. I know, we skipped bargaining and depression. Well, we skipped it here. I'm not sure I escaped either. I don't really get bargaining, although I did catch myself for a time praying things like "I'll go through this, God, but only if you use it, do something with it, bring some good out of it." Which may be bargaining if bargaining is just plain stupid. What choice do I have? I am going through it and it seems to me that God will or won't use it as He sees fit. So bargaining was shortlived.  Depression came and then decided to sit and stay awhile, but perhaps by its very nature inspires few moments of blog-worthy wisdom. Instead it just wreaks havoc on my sleep and appetite and marriage and tear ducts. Boring. If I promise to stay in the stage of depression for as long as is necessary to healthily grieve, can we move to my story about acceptance? Yes? Excellent!

My friends had a baby last week. Beautiful, perfect little E. And because my friends are the kind of people who live beautiful, inclusive, open lives, Todd and I were welcomed into their home a few days after E's birth, bearing food and inappropriate children's books and itching to get our hands on this brand-new person. I felt joy and only a twinge of envy, so I didn't expect the sucker punch to the gut I felt when they first handed me the baby. Pregnancy loss loses some of its frustrating, merciful abstraction when a fresh baby is in your arms. The weight of my loss felt more real with the warm, wiggly weight of baby E in my arms. But as I sat there, staring at E's perfect little face and his long skinny limbs with loose, wrinkly skin that he hasn't quite grown into yet, feeling the hiccups shake his whole little body, breathing deeply of that newborn baby smell U2 described as the scent of freedom, something else happened: the world felt right. I felt sad about all that I have lost, scared about how tiny and fragile E seems compared to this big, broken world, and certain that everything was going to be okay. Acceptance? Maybe.
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We take Communion every week at the church I attend. Each Sunday we receive the same welcome to come to the table and take the plastic thimbleful of grape juice (symbolizing the wine that symbolizes the blood of Christ) and the dry, yeastless wafer that makes you thankful for the juice to wash it down and is the body of Christ. The point of this ritual as I understand it is to help us remember the sacrifice Jesus made that somehow made us right with God. Each week I approach the Table, grab the tiny elements, and rush back to my seat where God and I can do our business without my self-consciousness threatening to ruin everything again. We're supposed to take Communion with a repentant spirit and sometimes it is just that: a time to acknowledge my failings and drink deeply (or as deeply as one can from a plastic thimble) of grace. Sometimes it's a foretaste of the wedding feast I anticipate, when Jesus will welcome us to the party and announce that all the drinks are on Him. Yesterday it was an act of defiance. Can you take the Eucharist as an act of defiance? I came to the Table shaken, heartbroken, with tears threatening to spill and soak my little body-of-Christ wafer. I didn't want to come. I wanted to stand at my seat, mumble the words of the last song, and then take my friend up on his offer of post-church margaritas. But I came because maybe, just sometimes, we come to the table and embrace this ancient, mysterious ritual as a defiant act of hope. Hope that God is better than we think. Hope that somehow the blood and body of Jesus Christ broken for me really is good news. Hope that all this hope is not for nothing. As I held my cracker and plastic cup in my hands, begging God for something, anything, I sensed the two words we're reminded of every time we take Communion: Remember Me. Remember that I came to show you what God is like. Some days remembering that requires all the hope and defiance I can muster.