Sunday Morning Introspection

You might think that for an introvert like myself, such a withdrawn and quiet person, hearing God would be easy. After all, being quiet and listening are among my special talents!

Not so. 

When you get inside my head, it's a flurry of information, speculations, bunny trails, ideas, narratives, and whatever else. On the rare occasions that I'm thinking of one category of things and nothing else, it's usually not a matter of my own choosing. It's so hard to wake up on Sunday morning, for example, and go "gee i have church soon so I should go ahead and focus my thoughts on God so I can be ready to hear from Him." (Ideally this should be every day but as you can see it's hard even once a week) 

Because of this, I'm rarely "in the mood" for worship and even if I try to pray and focus, it's really difficult. 

I don't know how to deal with this.

My most prominent idea is to have all my thoughts be prayers, like Tevye in Fiddler On The Roof. This is where I'd like to be someday, but for someone so self centered as me, the process is pretty hard. 

(Art by audrey lopata)

My little brother had communion today. Taking advantage of the fact that Mom and Dad weren't sitting near us, he jumped at his chance. I remember that feeling.

Our family's policy has usually been that children don't take communion until they are old enough to understand and make the commitment to follow Christ, and after they've demonstrated this in baptism. 

But I remember being young, too young, and still really wanting to participate. Sure, the in-church snackage seemed like an awesome privilege, but there was something more than that. That feeling of wanting to be a part of something bigger or to belong. I remember ripping pieces off my kids' bulletin to represent bread and rolling the rest up to be a cup, and acting out communion with everyone else even though I wasn't allowed to do the 'real' thing yet. 

But isn't the remembrance the important part? People can debate for days about the procedure and technical details of communion, about whether it's symbolic or not, if transubstantiation is a thing, etc etc. But according to Luke , the intention was remembrance... It is the one that records the instruction to DO THIS—in remembrance of Him.

Anyway, I'm not sure where I'm going with this, but I guess the idea is... I remember how it feels.  To want to participate even without completely understanding. And I think that's alright.