Loaves and Fishes
We were talking about addiction, this woman and I, when she said something that intrigued me.
She knows what she knows. She's a professional, a psychotherapist, and I'm an obnoxiously curious guy. She gives me insight sometimes into the variety of human behaviors, and I just lap it up.
Sometimes she gives me insight into my particular human behaviors. Less fun.
But we were talking about addiction. It can be anything, of course: drugs and alcohol, sex, chocolate, "Will and Grace," anything. And we talked about reasons why: grief, pain, loneliness, etc.
"And sometimes," she said, "it's simply a hunger for God."
Maybe you know this. It was news to me.
I know about this hunger. We all do, probably. I suspect we're hardwired to search for God, for spiritual sustenance, a genetic compulsion to phone home.
All I needed to know about God I learned in Sunday School. God is good, God created everything, God loves us. Sometimes I teach Sunday School, and I say pretty much the same thing. Sometimes, with older kids, I suggest that someday they'll be hungry for God. I suggest that this is perfectly natural, as it will be if and when they struggle with the whole concept. I know about this, too.
So it's not surprising to me, I guess, that hunger for God might lead us into self-destructive behaviors. I just never thought about it before.
I know about self-destructive behavior, by the way.
I know all about it.
I've gone to lots of churches. No one ever asks me if I'm hungry. No one ever asks me if I'm seeking, if I'm looking for something. Maybe it's because my wife is a Real Live Preacher. Maybe they assume.
I've worried about this before, that we assume too much in our churches. I suggested once to a pastor that we put a sign in front of the church that said, "Atheists Welcome." He gave me sort of a weak smile. Probably too Unitarian.
I used to help out with a special Sunday School, a sort of Junior Church, instructions for the little ones on how we worship. I worried then, too. I saw a lot of confused faces. I saw a man leave his little girl there one day, wiping tears as he left. She looked lost. I talked about it with our Christian education director, herself a woman to whom doubt or hunger would be strangers, I'd guess. A very nice woman. I wrote her a poem, then. Sometimes I just make stuff up.
I didn't bring my dime today.
I've never been to Sunday School
And no one told me of the rule.
I didn't know you had to pay.
And when they passed the plate around
I tried to look away, and then
They passed it by me once again
And no one near me made a sound.
I never heard of God before.
I never heard my mother say
A word; and now she's gone away
She doesn't love us anymore.
My daddy brought me here today.
He didn't really tell me why.
I've never seen my daddy cry.
I guess I'm s'posed to stay.
The teacher said to bow my head
And talk to God; I guess I did.
I hope God knows I'm just a kid
And didn't laugh at what I said.
I said to God that I was new
And had no dime to give today,
But would He love me anyway
If next time I brought two?
I'll stick to prose from now on, I think.
I don't know why this is on my mind today. Wait. I'm lying. I do know, but I'm not telling.
I will say this: I see hunger all the time. I see it in the faces of friends who laugh at the notion of a Creator. I see it in the back pews of church. I see it on the news. I see it, sometimes, in the mirror. I have no clue what to do.
So, once a month, on Saturday morning, I bake bread. Three loaves. When it cools I cut two of them into little pieces, and in the afternoon I go to church.
It's an old church, late 19th century, an edifice now in the inner city. No one's there on Saturday afternoons. I let myself in and go into the kitchen. I unwrap silver plates given in memory of someone long dead. I put little pieces of bread on the plates, and cover them. I pour grape juice into little plastic cups, and cover them.
I go into the empty sanctuary and set the table. I put on a cloth. I place the unbroken loaf on a plate. I fill a ceramic cup with more juice. I place the bread and the cups on the table, stacked and symmetric. I make a few adjustments. I stand back and look.
I can smell Puget Sound, three blocks away. I hear sea gulls singing. The late afternoon sun slips into the darkened sanctuary through stained glass. Sometimes I stay there for a while. Sometimes a long time.
Someone once raised the issue to my wife of children taking communion. "I just think they don't understand it," she said.
"You think we do?" my wife answered.
I know I don't. I just know that something happens on Saturday afternoons, that sometimes I get a glimpse of an idea about hunger and setting the table.
My psychotherapist friend said she senses great sadness in me. Maybe she's right. Maybe only a sad man would write a dumb poem about a lost little girl. As I say, I have no clue what to do about hunger, theirs or mine. I just do what I can, and hope for the best.
I like to bake bread, and once a month I get to bring enough for everybody, and somehow that seems to make a difference.
12:04:12 PM 
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