Thanksgiving Drinks

I am so thirsty!

Not too long ago, I could hear my voice drown out yours

whenever we cried out for this cup to be taken.

But, now I am anxious with thirst.

I’ve tasted and seen that you are good.

That you, beyond all others, are able to light, to create, to live

In the meaningless void that once threated to move to the center of my being. 

When I took the cup and drank it I knew it required my willingness

To follow you into the paradox of divine love;

Where darkness, dust and death become reminders of the center yet to be recovered.

But now my thirst is unrelenting!

It wasn’t that you chose my cup as your own,

Remotely inspiring me to go on; or assuring me that I am not alone from afar.

I’ve experienced you in both the presence and absence of love;

In love’s immanence and transcendence.

When I take the cup and drink it, when I receive the bread and eat it,

You are nourishing me with your very presence!

Love and grace are made tangible in the offering of your body and blood.

And I have never been more thirsty for you!

Oh Father, would you empower me to be light where darkness reigns?

To create alongside you where ashes and dust make unfertile ground?

To know the power of life resurrected while still knowing the defeat of death?

Christ, enliven me by your love until I find myself in deeper relationship

With all those a part of your body, and especially those who have yet to realize it.

Spirit, would you awaken us to sense your real incarnate presence

Around us, between us, within us?

Use this little cup one more time to love us, accept us,

And further mark the ugliest parts of us cruciform.

I’m so sorry it’s been so long.

Forgive me for being late to the table so often.

Please receive my thanks and praise today.

Satisfy my thirst, yet leave me wanting more forever…

Half Ounce Communion Cups

About a year ago at this time, I did not exist. But, somehow I made it to my Aunt's church in Boise to be with family after I had just been murdered.  Those puny plastic, single serving communion cups have always bothered me.  Something went awry theologically when churches started using those I think.  Thankfully, that little half ounce communion cup held all I could stomach.  When the time came and we were served, I froze.  And Jesus' prayer melted me and poured out...

How can such a small cup, filled with so little hold so much?

How do you use that sip of juice to stare back at me

and pierce my heart with that question once again?

It’s enough that I see my reflection in your blood so clearly. 

I am fully exposed. 

Isn’t it my place, my responsibility to simply be humble?

To thank you for offering the cup?

To worship you for the gift of grace

I could never find or manufacture on my own?

And yet you ask me before I drink in thanks, if I can even drink it?

If I am willing?  Will I drink at all?

Must I drink it to the dregs

to receive the love and graced promised within?

I don’t even want to look again…

Though I need to know some of my reflection will remain. 

I need that painful anger in my eyes! I want that rage and desire for vindication!

I cannot bear to drink knowing what it calls me to reconcile.

If I drink the cup, if I wash your broken body down with it,

I know I will be left to feel the emptiness...then I must feel.

Then I would see my lonely, empty cup,

the one that is cracked and damaged beyond repair.

I need the dregs Jesus!  To be safe, to hold on, to survive…

Mark…can you drink this cup…Will you?

Finally, I saw in my reflection not only my sorrow but yours again.

It was indeed the deepest darkest dregs of your anger and your pain.

LORD, only you know how one can suffer to drink this cup.

Only you know how to face the true state of things

where everything is painfully connected…

Sorrow and joy, pain and beauty,

the end and a new beginning, even death and life!

I can hardly stand to look into my own eyes here,

for I know once I do I will be undone.

Take the bread and eat it, giving thanks.  And take the cup and drink it with your brothers and sisters, with whom you are united in heart, mind and spirit through Christ.  Give thanks!

So, I eat the bread.  And I drink.  With great fear and miniscule faith, I drink

every last drop 

and in the moment grace shocked my tastebuds, I realize…

This little cup was yours long before it was ever mine.

And you still choose this cup as your own simply because it would be my cup.

I’m so reluctant, yet you have gone so far, so willingly, that you allow me

to be united with you in your suffering, your death, even your resurrection!

My sorrow is still your sorrow!  You suffer with me as I drink.  

I have not been totally abandoned!

You hear my doubt and fear.  My not wanting or knowing how I can bear to go on…

I can drink this cup, Jesus.  I am willing.  I must. 

As much as I wish it to be taken from me,                       

I will drink my cup of grief and follow you.