They were just prepackaged cookies and a paper cup full of water. Just snacks that we had in the office. Just my inadequate response to try to alleviate a fraction of the suffering that was being made manifest in front of me. They were just prepackaged cookies and a paper cup of water.
It was just cake. Just two packaged loaves of almond pound cake wrapped up in tinfoil and put in a plastic shopping bag, with two plastic forks, tied up (and left alongside their family’s asylum applications) with the receptionist for me. It was just cake.
I’m finding more and more though that “just” is not something that has existed for me the past few months. It is never “just” as it seems. It is also never “as just” as it seems, but that is for another day.
Working at the Y is the first time I have worked (in a non-restaurant setting) in a job that did not explicitly state the word “ministry” or “Catholic” in my job description. Truthfully, it was one of the aspects I was most nervous about as I discerned into working at the Y. Given that so much of my life has been molded and driven by ministry, stepping out of that traditional role did not bring me a lot of peace. Where am I left when I cannot fall back on institutional, spiritual safe spaces? What does it mean to be the church at work when that is not part of my job description? What does it mean for ministry to be a mindset, rather than a job title?
These feelings intensified (and are intensifying) given that I have not found any spiritual community I can fall back onto in Houston. Four years in college were punctuated by mass, adoration, praise and worship, and all things Campus Ministry. My job was a barista at a coffee shop at a church. My schedule, social circles, and mindset were all shaped around the Church community that was built for me there. It was just the way it was. The Y does not operate like that (nor should it).
Yet, I’ve learned more about the essence of liturgy from pre-packaged cookies, paper cups of water, and homemade cake in 7 months at the Y than I have in a lifetime.
Because I am hit with the lightning bolts that it is not just cookies and cake.
It is communion.
When an adult is crying in front of me and I cannot solve the problem, I learn what it means to be a disciple. I’m reminded of the importance of staying and giving all that I have, while simultaneously acknowledging that I cannot stop the pain. And when there are no words to say in the moment, there are often a plethora waiting to be spilled. And so, I wrote:
When prepackaged cookies and water
in paper cups
becomes like communion bread and wine
that’s when I know it is possible
for the church to also be in the street
When all I can do is sit a type of shiva to the suffering of another
that’s when I learn to feel how
the disciples felt at the
Last Supper.
When I stop to think about the
injustice of it all
I become paralyzed with fear and
want to run the other way
like most of them did.
Women who bore witness
inspire me to stay
caring for the Imago Dei
that is right in front of me.
But the giving of self is only one part of the story. Just as I thought I was getting the hang of not solving, but instead sitting with and giving, another client brought homemade cake and left it with the receptionist. In the midst of fighting for their right to stay, their family, their very ability to be, they took the time to bake and bring cake. Saying, “take this.” What is there to say to such audacious generosity? Generosity that says that, even broken, even in the midst of all of the fear, “take this and eat”.
This reception is what giving demands if we are to truly be disciples. To be like Jesus, we must be ready to give. To learn to lean into the love of Jesus, we have to be ready to receive.
This is my body, broken for you, take it.
No part of the liturgy calls for passivity. On the contrary, it calls for messy and feeling and broken shards and communal healing. It calls for action, even if that action is sitting still in the midst of the suffering of another because the only thing you can do is be with them. It calls for movement that can only be achieved in community. In order to give, the other must take. In order to take, the other must give. In order to feel, the other must be willing to open. This mutual acknowledgement, this is liturgical living.
So, despite not uttering a single scripted prayer at work, I am leaning into liturgy. This ministry is not one that I am instructed to do for work, but rather one that is finding me where I am and not letting me go. It’s not “just” anything. Rather, it is all a beautifully messy doorway into a learning how to love.
This Lent, I’m leaning into these liturgical lightning bolts. I’ll “just” keep living into the liturgy that is put in front of me.