Last week was a good week. Sure, I might have stressed a little bit too much about the midterms I have this week, I might have been very sick for several days, I might have struggled with some assignments, and it might have been a long week, but at the end of it all it was a good week.
It might have been a hard week, but it was another week. It was another week in the rhythms of life, in the heartbeats of my existence. As I have moved into the mid to late semester, I have developed structures, rhythms, rituals, and habits to help me navigate through the tensions of life. These rituals are like little fires and candles that warm me and light my path as I walk through the vast cold wilderness of the human experience; these rituals illuminate the beautiful landscape before me, and allow me to take a moment and take assessment of my travels.
On Mondays immediately after I finish my prelabs for computer organization, I hurry to Marsh Chapel to the community dinners. There, I participate in common rituals of friendship, fellowship and community. Each week I am reminded of the wonderful people around me.
On Thursdays, I go to SojournBU’s Cadre – meaning a group of people surrounding a revolutionary idea – and sit around close friends that I have known since I was a freshman here at Boston University. And every week, every Cadre, we laugh, we joke, and we discuss our thoughts surrounding various passages in scripture. Every week, we hear thoughts from various different perspectives and consider the themes in the passages. We then discuss a challenge that we should try for the week. I recall one week in my freshman year where for my challenge (I think it had to do with forgiveness or amending conflicts – I genuinely do not remember) I ended up buying an apple pie for a very unruly neighbor on my floor in Warren towers. I remember very well telling my neighbor that, yes we have our differences and, yes, I know I complain to him a lot about his disruptive behavior, but here is a pie and I hope we can settle our differences and that he’s a good guy. I remember he was happy with that. We shook hands. Honestly, looking back on that, he was a fine neighbor. I am glad I gave him that pie.
On Sundays, after church, I get lunch with Jen, and we talk about life, and then we relax for a few hours. We watch TV. We take it easy. A good end to a good week.
Overlaying this all are other, great rituals. Every few weekends, Jen and I will visit my brother and we will play board games and have dinner. Every few weekends, I will go and hangout with my friends at Northeastern and visit their board game club or we will watch a movie. Every few weekends, I will take communion.
Communion. Every few weekends, I will break the bread and drink the juice or wine. Every few weekends. For years. Sometimes, as I have walked up the aisles of the church to receive communion, it had been on weekends where I felt on top of life. Sometimes, it was on weekends in the lowest points of my life. Sometimes, it was a normal weekend. Sometimes I walked up exhausted and sometimes I walked up awake, confident, and courageous. Sometimes I walked up seeking peace. Sometimes I walked up thinking about forks in the roads of life. Sometimes I have walked up in celebration. Sometimes, I have walked up grieving. Sometimes I have walked up contemplating.
Sometimes I have walked up with Jen. Sometimes I have walked up with my parents. Sometimes the elements have been handed to me. Sometimes I have taken communion in a small group of people. Sometimes I have taken it outdoors on Marsh plaza, in a hotel ballroom, in a small church, in a large church, with friends, with family, with strangers. I have received communion sometimes kneeling, sometimes standing, and sometimes sitting.
Each time, this ritual has grounded me in the bigger picture of my life; meaning pours into my heart. I am reminded of the tensions and fragilities in my life that I must embrace. As Rob Bell puts it, “In the Eucharist the bread and wine are considered holy because all bread and wine are holy. You come to the table and take the bread and wine as an act of contemplation to remind yourself that all of life is holy. It’s not about coming in out of the world to experience God, it’s about being reminded in this ancient ritual of the divine who is present in all of life.” It is in those moments when I experience a connection to my community, to the Ground of my being, to God, to Christ, and to my existence as a whole.
It is in these rituals that I am reminded of the divine in my life: in Communion, which has been a part of my life for over ten years, in the Cadres of SojournBU, which has been a regular part of my weekly rhythms for almost three years now, in the lazy Sunday afternoon lunches with Jen after church that have become the norm since I have gone to college, in the board game weekends that became a norm after my brother graduated college two years ago, in the usual weekend board games and movies that my friends from Northeastern began to often host since last spring, and in the community dinners I have found this semester. It is in these long standing rituals and newly discovered ones that I continue forward, warm and with a field of view illuminated by the flames of my rituals, courageously embracing existence.