25. BREAKING BREAD (navigting the path of faith in a worldwide pandemic)

One of roughly 200 little sacrament sets
we made when the pandemic
closed the doors of our churches.

(One year ago this week, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints cancelled all scheduled church gatherings, including our Sunday Sacrament meetings. The following was written a few months after we had begun the year of hunkering down.)

BREAKING BREAD (navigating the path of faith in a worldwide pandemic)

Her voice shook when she said Hello. 

I asked what was wrong.

"I think maybe I need to come home."

My daughter Kate had called from New York, where she has been living in isolation for, what, five thousand years now? She lives in upstate New York while she is earning her PhD. Kate is a quiet, passionate soul who feels deeply and speaks softly, and for whom social distancing was not really a problem because too much human interaction can generally sap her energy. But she is, nonetheless, a human, with much love to give. By the time the media overloaded all of us with information and opinions, and people started acting like caged animals set free, and George Floyd stopped breathing, Kate hit the proverbial wall.

“I think I need a hug.” 

A few days later, despite the worries of travel during a pandemic, she was on a plane headed home.

We have been practicing hug therapy since she arrived. Truth be known, it was I who needed her arms around me.

Therapeutic hugging.

It is an interesting exercise to pause, during a worldwide pandemic, and look over your own little world, and actually make an effort to note what is happening. My instinct is to do one of two things: 1. keep myself busy, or 2. sleep.  I’m pretty good at both.

I found myself creating projects. Mind you, none of them are in the category of cleaning or organizing. For a while I taught guitar online. And since every single gig went away, Mark and Kelly and I did a little cul-de-sac concert for our neighbors once. But that’s it, as far as my “professional career” goes. I have basically lost the calluses on my left-hand fingertips. I can’t even stay focused long enough to want to write a song. Even making myself write this right now is taxing. I keep wanting to stop and go find something to eat.

The little garage project that has kept me focused for a couple months now has been a literal God-send. The first week church was cancelled, because of the pandemic, we were invited to prepare and present the Sacrament in our own homes, if we had the ordained priesthood available to bless it. It was a profoundly moving experience here in our home. My sisters Libby and Sherry were with us. We poured water into little Dixie cups, and set a little chunk of bread on a plate. Dave knelt at our antique altar, the one that has been sitting in our family room for decades, waiting for an opportunity to fill the measure of its creation. He bowed his head, then realized he only knew, by rote, how to say the Sacrament prayers in Italian. It was the language of his mission. Since he returned home he has always repeated the words in his mind in Italian when the Sacrament was being blessed in English. It’s how he remains connected to that holy moment in his life. So, my sisters and I asked him to say it in Italian, which he did, but then he felt like he should say it in English, too, and found the book of scripture and repeated the prayers in English. It was super sweet, and deeply moving. I was struck with how profoundly personal the sacrament is.

Easter was coming up, and I had this notion to create something more divine than Dixie cups and salad plates for what looked to be a new way of renewing our covenants weekly. Dave bought a drill bit that would pierce large holes in wood, I scoured Etsy and eBay for antique glass communion cups, and eventually, though they have been through various iterations, we came up with Sacrament Service sets that not only made the Sacrament feel more “set apart”, they serve to remind us of this peculiar time in our history. The talented Ben Behunin made wonderful little plates that we use for the bread, and the glass cups evoke a reminiscence of times gone by, when our ancestors partook before plastic was even a thing. We gave a set to each of our kids on Easter Sunday. We have all used them every week since.

By the end of summer we had made Sacrament
sets for every member of our ward and many family and friends.

The way things evolve at our house, we thought we should expand to siblings. Then nieces and nephews, then in-laws, and close friends who had birthdays. And, so it went. We soon ran out of antique glasses. But I found plastic ones online. I spent hours on hours in the garage, drilling, sanding, painting, lacquering. My sisters and brother-in-law Michael pitched in and it became a “thing”. Within a month, we had delivered sets to most everyone in our ward who we thought might be able to use them. Hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars and limitless love. It has been the most rewarding project I could have ever imagined.

This past Sunday, for the first time since the state was shut down and we were asked to keep our distance, we called our family together at our house. It has been tradition to gather every other Sunday for dinner at our house, but it’s not happened since early March. We finally felt like we could have a bar-b-que outside, and seat people in their own families. So that’s what we did. I close my eyes and inhale slowly, reliving that gathering. I wondered if that’s what death might feel like; reuniting with loved ones long missed? 

Before dinner we filled 25 tiny glass communion cups with water from the Farmington well. We sang As I Have Loved You as the bread was broken. It’s our Covid Sacrament Song, because it speaks the truth so concisely and it is one short verse, just right for breaking such a tiny portion of bread. There in our front yard, in crisply lined shadow of our home, our oldest grandchild knelt on the footstool that has been used, upside down, in our family nativity since he played Baby Jesus. He knelt with reverence and blessed the bread. Parker and Dave walked the bread around the yard, offering it to the people I love most in this world. Then Gumpa blessed the water. One by one tiny fingers and old wrinkled fingers delicately lifted those old glass cups to their lips. We committed, once again, to keep His commandments and follow Him. But first we promised to remember Him. Remembering is the first step.

Friend and potter Ben Behunin created
wonderful small plates from which we
serve the Sacrament bread.

Kate shared with us a talk she had given, via Zoom, in her ward in New York last month. It was on trusting the arm of the Lord. We wept as she spoke.

I am reminded that it takes effort to preserve certain things. Fruit, for instance, must be ripe, but not over ripe, if you want to preserve it. It takes preparation, and patience, and concerted effort to set them in a position to remain for later use. Otherwise, it goes the way of the world and is forgotten. Moments become memories, sometimes by accident. But more often they are preserved on purpose, in images, in words, in conversation repeated often enough to seal them in our histories. If I want to preserve that evening in June 2020, when our family gathered for the first time since the pandemic hit the US, then I knew it required effort. So here it is. Words to give you the picture I forgot to take with my camera: 

The leaves on the scrub oaks and the Japanese maple are in full green-dom. The petunias in the flower beds have taken root and are multiplying. And so are the weeds, I’m sorry to say. The grass is trim and neatly edged. We have placed six tables throughout the front yard, and two bar-b-que grills are on the sidewalk by the red porch. The pink tablecloths I sewed in Margaret’s sewing class cover the tables. We have cut watermelon, and made Gramma Connors salad, and a tossed salad, and Ann Marie has steamed a large pot of lime rice. The brats are ready to put on the grill, with the marinated chicken. The laughter of small cousins rediscovering each other floats through the breeze, which rocks the small birdhouse hanging from the flowering pear tree. The younger generation sits on the upper level, separated from the vulnerable elders. I sit with the elders, but without apology snag little Tessa and hold her on my lap. Hug therapy. 

We have gathered once again. 

We have gathered to feast, yes. 

But first, we break bread.

Our home made Sacrament set has a permanent spot
on our family room sofa table.