Acts of communion

Photo by Mark Champlin

   
At the end of every led class, our teacher walks the room while we lie in savasana, and she blesses us, trailing the thin smoke from a stick of incense as she makes her way around the room. This is a sacred benediction, one of many rituals this teacher has shared with her students since she accepted her authorization to teach ashtanga yoga from Sri K. Pattabhi Jois more than 20 years ago. This particular ritual is a personal favorite and a great comfort. It comes to me from across many years, from an older ritual of celebrating the High Holy Days at mass in the Roman Catholic tradition of my youth. While I have since adopted other rites and ceremonies that make up my devotional practice, I am every so often visited by a strong memory from this religion that laid claim to me through the sacrament of baptism shortly after my birth. Catholicism, after all, was the principal container of my faith until my mid-twenties when I ultimately set aside the weekly duty of attending mass, and with it much of the dogma that had made its way into my life.

I have been thinking a lot about dogma lately. Its close connection to what we come to believe in, and how our lives, as a consequence, track that connection and create an orbit for us to faithfully travel. In such a large world, dogma can feel very small. And perhaps this is where its power lies. In such a large, diverse and complex world, growing ever more large, diverse and complex, dogma feels safe. 

One of the many cartoons that Gary Larson illustrated for his Far Side strip before his retirement in 1995 is one labeled The Blob family at home. We see three members of the Blob family in their living room. The living room window looks out onto their front yard where we also see a couple, a man and a woman, both well-dressed. They are heading for the sidewalk that will lead them to the Blob family's front door. Inside the living room, a member of the Blob family is shouting a warning to the others: "Jehovah's Witnesses! Jehovah's Witnesses!... Everyone act like bean bag chairs!" I remember sharing this cartoon with a friend of mine who grew up as a Jehovah's Witness. She and I met at work almost 30 years ago, and during the time we worked together, we arranged to meet for lunch nearly every day. We never tired of sharing our stories, listening to one another and laughing until we cried. Sometimes, we cried together, too. All these years later, we remain friends. She calls me Mia Sarah and repeats Excellent twice when she commits to doing something important. Like making time to meet me for dinner. When she sends me a card or an e-mail, she closes her message with I love you so. And, I know it's for real.

Naturally, she thought the Far Side cartoon was hysterical. Who hasn't tried to remain silent until an unwanted solicitor made his retreat? But my friend earned her humor the hard way, by living her way through the long distance that separates her from the direct experience. When she was young, and still a member of the church, she would spend her weekends going door-to-door with her parents to spread Jehovah's good news. While she experienced her share of the bean bag equivalent, this was not the most challenging part.

What the Far Side strip cannot show is the part of the story that is not very funny at all. Because when my friend grew beyond the dogma of her parents chosen religion and found her courage and left the church--and along with it the husband she had been permitted to marry by the doctrine of her faith (and right out of high school)--she lost her entire family and the community of believers that had given meaning to her days. To leave the Kingdom Hall is to be left behind. This means no more contact by phone or mail--snail or otherwise--no visits to your family's home or those of the friends who continue to believe. The severing surpasses the notion of not being welcome; in the eyes of the Jehovah's Witnesses, you no longer exist. Forty years later, when it came time to bury her father, my friend was not permitted to attend the services held for him in the Kingdom Hall.

While working at my desk one day last week, I heard someone at the front gate. I waited to see whether there would be a knock at the door, which would then necessitate a response from me. But there was no knock, so, I could assume that it had been a gas company employee there to read the meter or a realtor with a brochure to fasten by rubber band to the front gate. Our dog, of course, needs no excuse to investigate a noise. And because our dog had his nose against the front window, and was wagging his tail and making sounds of delight, I was forced to investigate as well. It turned out to be a member of the local Jehovah's Witnesses congregation, and he had come out this day, as he told me, to share some comfort in these troubling times. He asked me whether he could read me a passage from the Bible, a verse from Corinthians selected especially for its message of comfort. Before he read his chosen passage, we chatted briefly about religion, our mutual backgrounds--we both began as Catholics--and my current spiritual practice, which I described in the broadest way possible. This was an attempt on my part to let him know that our versions of God and faith and evolution were undoubtedly vastly different, and it was best to proceed no further. So, he read, and I listened, dog in arms, and when he was finished, he offered me the latest copy of The Watchtower--which always makes me think of Jimi Hendrix. Then, he said thank you. He thanked me for allowing him to do what he set out to do that morning, offer some words of comfort. He told me most people are usually not very polite, and he finished by also thanking me for sharing a smile with him.

I do not remember a word of the Corinthians passage this man read to me, and I politely declined the copy of The Watchtower that he had offered, knowing that it would go from his hand into my recycling bin. I had not forgotten the stories of my friend's great losses experienced over the years  in the aftermath of her decision to leave this church. To this day, she will ask me, rhetorically, Why don't they like me? I understand this particular wound. It goes to the bone. While I would not say that I had been seeking comfort when I went to the door that morning, upon returning to my desk, I found that I had indeed been altered by the conversation. French geophysicist and spiritual thinker Xavier Le Pichon, would say that by not rejecting this person, my heart got educated. In Le Pichon's world view--a man who in his lifetime has entertained the world view of those with both mental illness and mental disability by agreeing to live among them--this was an act of communion. Creating communion, learning how to enter into communion with your neighbors, Le Pichon says, is the essence of life. Not the dogma. Not the words. Not the ritual. The relationship.

After a year of such intensely dark and negative political and social rhetoric across the U.S., Le Pichon's view of communion gives me hope. As does my teacher's weekly benediction. I understand that it is not enough to hope. "We must love one another or die," wrote the poet W.H. Auden. Because I know us to be capable of innumerable daily acts of communion both big and small, I know we are also capable of manifesting this thing we need to survive.