Juice for Jesus

it's a bright sunday morning when my good eye pops open and i begin my sunday chores, which generally involves whatever is left over of my saturday chores. of course, church service in imminent so there are things that need doing. coffee needs brewing, sound needs checking, candles need lighting. i was in japan once, and scaled 1,000 steps to get to a shinto house of worship on sunday - the monks explained that they wanted to make sure that only those who came really wanted to be there.

when the pastor shows, family and all, he surveys my work. "communion?" he asks, and i turn in dismay to the empty table in front of the church. i haven't set it out and, what's worse, we're out of crackers and grape juice. walgreen's is a ten minute walk, and off i go.

2 things:
"my one good eye." the night before, i allowed big g, my resident friend/sometime mortal foe/all-time dealer of drugs to other friends to take me on a short-cut from wrigley field back to my house. tyler, an impish runaway girl tagged along with us. she's the sort of girl boys hate to love, a girl who can throw faster, spit further, drink harder and cuss meaner than any of the guys. they made for a pretty tough couple, and i was the odd one out. they were doing their best to make it seem like they followed after God with the ardor of a middle-aged monk, and i was doing my best to keep it real. however, when our short cut led to a locked gate, both of our facades fell away. big g didn't seem very christian when he yanked at the gate until the lock split off and the iron bars flew open, and i didn't seem very gangsta when the bars hit me in the face, split my eyebrow in half, and sent me face down into the street, spewing blood and causing big g to go uncharacteristically bonkers over my well-being.

"crackers and grape juice." i don't like it anymore than you do, but the evangelical tradition has adopted an annotated version of the eucharist of late, substituting saltines and welch's for the body and the blood. there are benefits to this, but the overall effect seems to be a distinctly mcdonald's take on sacraments. the lord's supper has been streamlined down to the lord's snack.

at any rate, this is how i found myself running to wallgreen's, one eye swollen shut, hoping for a good deal on crackers and grape juice. it's a pleasant enough walk when its warm, and sunday morning walks are always welcome, the rest of the world busying themselves about enjoying the freest morning of the week. skipping church is its own reward. i run into walgreens and grab the first box of crackers i see (walgreen's brand, if memory serves me) and run up and down aisles, looking for grape juice. Its not by the orange. Its not with the soda. Church is starting soon. I'll still have to fill thirty little cups when I get back - a proccess that usually involves spilling half the container and leaving the kitchen looking like the aftermath of some ecclesiastic violence. where is the grape juice?

finally i turn a corner and see them, big jugs with white labels and cute kids smacking their lips across the packaging. i start checking prices and then, turn the containers to check ingredients. what would jesus drink? the question takes on gravity in this scenario, as we're doing this per his request, taking a stab at paying the back the Divine Favor. here, all he asked on the night of his death was that we eat a little and drink a little now and again, and remember him as we do. he didn't give specifications, but concentrate just seems wrong, as does something slyly dubbed: "actual grape flavor!" but, on a budget like this, can i afford the 100% natural juice? if it's for jesus? the cranberry grape is all natural and on sale, but does one mix cranberries into the communion wine? are we past that point, since we've foregone wine and all anyway? am i thinking too much? is my quest to fuse the sacred and the mundane bordering on psychosis, seeing as i've been staring at grape/cranberry juices for the past five minutes? as long as the stuff looks like blood, are we close enough?

i come to my senses as i realize that i've dropped the crackers on the wallgreens floor and am crying out of my good eye.

i grab the natural stuff and shuffle to the front of the line, one eye bruised and one eye red and angry-looking. there's a line of people in front of me, an old man with a pack of razors, a cute girl my age with a bag of cookies and a gallon of milk. and me, my crackers and grape juice: the body and blood of Christ (actual? symbolic? does it matter?) the line trickles through and i get to the front, where a dark-skinned takes the items from me and runs them under a scanner.

"find everything alright?"