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So I took communion today

It was the first time since I'd "become" an atheist. Yes, you can take this to mean that I am very, uncomfortably and irritatingly, closeted. In short, it was a highly tense and awkward experience. I felt like a complete hypocrite, an impostor among the faithful. If you've never taken communion, you should go to a church just for the educational exposure. It was surreal, watching this mass of people silently and reverently meander up to the front of the church and assemble into lines. Take a piece of bread from the first person, who tells you something along the lines of how wonderful it is you're eating Jesus' body, then move to the next, who mumbles a brief phrase about blood as you cautiously dip your ration of holy flesh for the month - into what you hope is grape juice. And while you're untying that mess of a sentence I'm wandering back to my seat, pretending to deeply ponder the goodness of god before putting the thing in my mouth before I remember what it's supposed to be. Aside from the disturbing reality of this demonstration of religion's capacity for compulsion, it irritates me how much I was bothered by performing it. When I was agnostic I didn't worry too much about it; shrugged it off with an apathetic twist of a shoulder. But now it's much different. Having completely renounced any shred of faith in this sort of thing, I almost feel I'm insulting the rest of them with my farce. And despite being an atheist, I do respect the beliefs of others, and their right to hold them. Mostly. I try to at least.

Tags: awkward, closeted, communion, let's, play, pretend, situations

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Comment by Fr33think3r on December 13, 2008 at 8:10am: You are not a hypocrite or an imposter. You are evolving.
Let me tell you that awkward is sitting in the middle of a catholic church while everyone else is taking communion.
I think Uomo’s comment is relevant here.

Comment by o on November 24, 2008 at 10:26am: That's interesting Dam. My final foray in religion was as a convert to Eastern Orthodoxy. They do things a bit differently and now I wonder if the way they do things was an "economia" to accommodate the behavior you described. In EO there is a communal cup. The priest puts leavened bread in the cup and then covers it with wine. You receive it by a little spoon (yes...everyone puts the whole spoon in their mouths and etiquette dictates that you make sure you wipe the spoon clean by closing your lips around it). But after you receive communion you are offered blessed bread too. It's *that* stuff that people take home to partake in for other purposes or a little each day. It's thought of as something like a "little" communion.

December: I understand how you feel. When I stopped believing, even though I rationally understood that communion was just hocus pocus, I had spent too many years partaking of something that I had held as deeply profound to treat it lightly.

Comment by Deborah Mitchell on November 24, 2008 at 7:52am: My mom raised me Catholic, so I can relate to your post. It's interesting the power that little communion wafer has. And the wafer is treated with more respect that our teachers...
Did you ever read the book Religion & The Decline of Magic. There's quite a bit in there about the history of communion. The reason why wafers were put on the tongues directly by the priest at one point in history was because people used to "steal" them. They'd sneak the wafers out of the church in their pockets and bring them home. At one time, people believed the communion wafers could help their gardens, heal the sick, etc. Interesting, huh?