My Cup Runneth Over

  

This past Sunday at church was Communion Sunday, a sacred rite I've participated in countless times since becoming a regular church goer. But before that, there were many years when I was in church about as often as a total eclipse of the sun. Starting in college and for about the next 15 years, I may have darkened a church’s doorstep maybe three times; once for a funeral, once for a wedding, and one memorable Sunday in Sandpoint, Idaho.

It'd been a difficult first few months living in Sandpoint and working at KSPT and KPND-FM. Not much was going well. The weather was cold, the job was a real grind, I was single with no vision of that ever changing. I just wasn't enjoying life. So as 1983 gave way to 1984, I made a New Year’s resolution to change things up. First thing I resolved to do was get myself back into a church. I wanted a fresh start and figured that was a reasonable place to start. And with New Year’s Day falling on Sunday that year, there was no good excuse to put it off. 

So instead of the usual Sunday routine-sleep till 10, head to the Laundromat, drink copious amounts of coffee, do laundry, fold laundry, read the morning paper, go home, put laundry away, go back to sleep- I rolled my butt out of bed and opened the phone book. I didn't know any churches off the top of my head, so used the Yellow Pages church directory to narrow my search. Actually, I just closed my eyes and pointed.

 

The first time I landed on a Christian Scientists listing. Though woefully un-churched, I knew enough to know I didn't want to go there. So I picked again. This time my pinkie landed on the United Methodist Church of Sandpoint. Whew! I'd never been to a Methodist church before, but it sounded mainstream enough for my limited theological tastes.

They offered two Sunday services, at 9 and 11. It was past 8:30 so I was already late for the 9:00 one. But I’d have no trouble making it in time for the 11. I showered, shaved and rummaged for my Sunday go-to-meetin duds. However, not a guy to dress up much, I didn’t have a closet of nice clothes or much to select from. But I did find one white shirt and a “just-in-case-I-need-one” tie so I wouldn't be going out dressed as the abominable radio man.

 

Yet as I drove off, I wondered why was I doing this? Church was boring and, deep down I really didn’t want to go. Plus, I wouldn’t know anybody there, it’d feel awkward, and what if they were, ya know, weird? Worse, what if they thought I was weird? The internal inquisition and thoughts of dread, crackled though my mind like mosquitoes being zapped on a bug light. And suddenly I wanted to turn around and go home.

 

There wasn’t a lot of time to argue with myself, though, because in less than ten minutes I found myself in front of the church. Located in the seven hundred block of Main Street, the building looked fairly new. The walls had a fresh coat of white paint, anyway. There was a little bell tower over the front door which I liked, because it reminded me of the church I went to as a kid. But this place had something else going for it, too- a rather encouraging street number, 711. Perhaps it was a good omen. Perhaps this was exactly where I was meant to be.

 

There were a lot of people going in and out, so as I made my way into the sanctuary it was easy getting lost in the crowd. Instinctively I sought out a seat near the back door and on an aisle, in case I needed to make a quick getaway. And at first I thought I'd made a pretty good choice and briefly felt safe and secure, and almost comfortable. But just before 11, a large family came in and asked if I’d slide over; they had an elderly grandma with a walker who preferred sitting on the end. So I got pushed into the middle, surrounded by a big family to my right and some stragglers to the left who’d filled up the rest of the row. I was now trapped.

 

Less than a minute later, though, the service began and momentarily I was able to forget how squeezed in I felt. The worship order seemed fairly routine; there were some hymns-one I even knew, “Holy, Holy, Holy”- some general announcements, a couple of prayers, an offering, a soloist and then the sermon. By then, I was ready for a nap, but the Reverend was a fairly young guy and a pretty capable speaker. So I didn’t zone out as much as I thought I might. His topic of choice was centered on new beginnings for a new year. Not real original, but what other sermon theme would you expect on a January 1^st? It wasn't half bad either.

At the conclusion of the message, they did communion. Well that’s cool. It'd been a long time since my last communion, but, I thought, what better way to kick off 1984? Yet with so much to be forgiven for since about high school, I wondered if there'd be enough juice in the cup to atone for everything. But even if there wasn’t, with the dawn of the New Year maybe there’d at least be enough for a clean start. I was stoked at the possibility, anyway.

 

Communion, of course, is a solemn ritual and the sanctuary took on a very serious tone. As the bread and juice were passed, quiet background organ music played in the otherwise still room and, except for a couple of stifled coughs, nobody uttered a sound. When the bread basket came to my row, I quietly and reverently took a small piece as it was passed to me, and held it in my lap. The juice followed. And when it was my turn, I removed one of the tiny cups and started to pass the plate on to the person next to me.

But then I dropped the silly thing.

I don’t know how or why it happened but, like an unforced error on an easy ground ball, I simply booted it; or in this case, dropped it. Maybe my palms were sweaty, but it just slipped out of my grasp. As it did, the remaining cups of juice spilled out and the brass holding plate clanked brashly on the polished hardwood floor. Even my own cup of juice sloshed onto my nice white shirt.

When the plate settled, I looked down and saw tiny puddles of commercial grade grape juice pooling at my feet and starting to run everywhere, like a bleeding-out body. The abrupt sharp and clanging racket caused an immediate murmuring and turning of heads with my face, no doubt, already turning as red as the crimson stain on my shirt. And right then and there, I wanted the ground to swallow me up, never to see the light of day again; at least not in this town or in this building.

See? I knew I shouldn’t have gone to church. I just knew it! Why hadn't I trusted my first instinct an hour earlier, to just flee on arrival.

One of the ushers rushed over to assess the mess. He shook his head disapprovingly- right at me- and I swear his face registered something like, "Nice going, ass hole". But then he gently pushed his hands out in front of him, as if to non-verbally assure me that all was okay, it'd be taken care of, don't worry. Then another guy brought another juice plate, and passed it down for the rest of the row that didn't get any the first time. But as it came my way, I kept my hands folded and let the guy on the right pass it around me to the lady on my left. I didn't even want to breathe on the thing.

 

The lady let me take a new cup of juice and smiled at me, too- though probably more out of pity than because we were sharing a funny moment. And though I'd made a mess in His house, I wondered if God kind of saw the humor in it, too.  

 

But there I was, in a new, unfamiliar situation and wishing to remain as inconspicuous as possible, and what do I do? Drop the communion plate--loudly--in the middle of the service. Had I been much of a praying man then, I'd have prayed for someone to lead me to the nearest bus and instruct the driver to kindly run over me.

 

I hung my head in shame. It was humiliating. I'd disrupted the service and made a fool of myself but there was no place to hide. I was still stuck in the middle of that long, long pew with no easy way out. And I never knew this before, but there's something dreadfully unpleasant about sitting in church drenched in grape juice, and feeling like every pair of eyes behind you is boring into the back of your head. Welcome to my world. Fortunately, I didn’t have to bare this cross much longer. After Communion and another song, the benediction and dismissal, I scrambled out of there as if my clothes were on fire.

But before I could make a final escape, the few people who dared speak to me were gracious and offered general words of comfort:

 

It could happen to anyone.

 

Some of the older folks were asleep. You just woke them up.

 

The floor needed cleaning anyway.

 

Hahaha. I plastered on the 'ol fake smile, thanked them, wished them a nice day and practically sprinted to the car like the cops were after me, never to set foot in that church, or any other Sandpoint house of worship, again. 

But eventually, a few years later- in a new state and town and far from Sandpoint, Idaho- I dipped my toes into the proverbial pool of religion once more and found sanctuary and forgiveness in God's house. And this time, I stayed and went back. And in all those Sundays since, have yet to spill the Communion juice again.

And after Sandpoint, I haven't made many more New Year’s resolutions, either.