Communion

I love this time of year. There is no better feeling than taking the bread and the wine and knowing that my sins are washed away, again. Every year it's a relief. It's the feeling of freedom and the liberation never gets old.

I love looking around church and seeing my friends and family and knowing that they've fallen short, too, just like me, and they are free too. We are in this struggle together, this struggle to overcome--our weakness, our temptation, our idols, our apathy, our humanness--and only through God's power can we win this struggle. We are not alone.

I love knowing that throughout this great country and around the world, fellow believers are doing the same thing I'm doing. Little seeds of eternal life are planted and these seeds will bring forth the fruits of love and peace and kindness and gentleness and patience.

Eventually, the world will be filled with this perfection and there will be no more war, no sorrow, no pain, no fear and no crying. Isn't this what every heart yearns for? A place where there is perfect justice and safety and love. I figure that was what the Beatles aimed for when they Imagined. Christians imagine, too, they just see humans for what they are: fallible, frail, imperfect potential who with God's help can transcend the bonds of this physical life and emerge on the other side triumphant.

How blessed are we Americans? This country was imagined as a City on the Hill, a bright beacon, God blessed and blessing the world with truth, and justice and freedom. America, though imperfect, embodies those ideals still, and carries this banner to the world, ever hopeful for our fellow man. And even still, even though living under this amazing grace, we yearn for a better Kingdom where we can be reunited with those we love and have lost and want to commune with again.

I am not ashamed to want this vision for my fellow man. The liberty of God's divine love confers freedom and releases a man to achieve his highest potential. The truth of this makes the simple wise and the weak mighty.

I eagerly anticipate the day when the whole world communes as one. May it come soon!