Communion

Over the past couple of years communion has become the bread of life for me. I crave that time around the bread and wine...the body and blood of Jesus Christ...my savior and my rock. I love the time in "big" church when we gather around the table. I love it when we go forward for communion and I mostly love it when someone says those precious words to me....the body of Christ...the blood of Jesus...given for you. I love it when the person serving me looks me in the eye and says those words and it is even more precious when they hug me in the process. I love watching our family greeting each other with smiles, hugs, handshakes, kisses, pats on the back and huddling up to pray. I crave communion so intensely that I don't even mind when we take communion in the traditional Church of Christ way...people walking the aisles and passing the communion down the rows. But there are moments when I feel compelled to get up and take communion to someone and eat with them. I feel like the Spirit is moving me and I am not budging because I don't want to be disruptive or to offend anyone but I feel like I am pushing the Spirit down inside me.
My favorite place to take communion lately has been with my small group. Every time we meet we do communion. We walk across the room and take it to each other and remind each other that this is the body of Christ...sometimes we kneel in front of each other and we also remind each other of the things that connect us and the things that make each of us unique parts of the body. While we are taking communion we quietly look across the room at each other and take it all in, while Ethan makes his sweet baby noises. It is family.

Here are some words from Lauren Winner's book Girl Meets God:

At All Angel's, I teach the five-and-six-year-old Sunday school class. One day we sit in a circle on the dusty green rug and talk about the Eucharist. "Then Milind stands up and prays for a long time. He gives a long speech, doesn't he?" I ask, referring to the consecration of the bread, when the priest tells the story of the Last Supper. "What do you think is in that big goblet?"
"Apple juice," cries out one student, evidently swayed by weeks of Sunday school snacks. (She may also think the Eucharist wafer is a graham cracker.)
"I know," says a boy in a daringly pastel T-shirt. "Milind is giving everybody wine to drink." That was the correct answer, of course, but I kept calling on students.
"I think," says a pensive girl with black corkscrew curls circling her face, 'that Mister Milind is pouring God into the cup for us to drink."
That, I think, is what Jesus must have meant when He said we need to be like little children. He was talking about this very corkscrew-curled little girl, who doesn't care about transsignification or consubstantiation or substance and accidents. She just knows that the priest pours God into a communion cup.

Give me your thoughts on communion...does it feel rote or boring to you? are you craving it like I am right now? do you love to take it most with the people that you love the most? is it hard to take with people you are angry with? how does it feel to you when it is the most perfect to you? how do you meet Jesus at the table?