March 12, 2009
Wenchie: Servant of God
Okay, because I work at a church organization, there's a chapel on the first floor of the building, where we have a church service every Wednesday morning. I find this awesome because I can get paid to attend church, while missing work, my boss heartily approves, AND I can sleep in on Sunday mornings. Accepting Jeebus Xt as my personal savior never felt so good!
What? A gal's gotta have a personal savior, right? Might as well be Jeebus. It's not like Depeche Mode has done anything good lately.
A couple months ago, because someone was apparently desparate, I was asked to be a "lector." Which is just a fancy word for "reader." Okay, I can lect, that's easy. I read a lesson from the Old Testament, correctly pronounced a couple weird names, and distributed the wine during communion.
That's right, the words "the blood of Christ, shed for you" have actually passed through these lips. Without irony. How's that for keeping you awake at night?
Don't worry, I haven't lost my trademark sacralicious edge. I just couldn't think of a viable reason to say No. Besides, channelling the holy spirit can't hurt me in my quest to become permanantly employed there.
Actually, the first time I was holding the chalice (i.e. huge cup of wine), I blanked on what was going on. I had an out-of-body experience, looking down on myself thinking, "I really hope these people don't die, receiving the sacrament from such a blatant evil-doer. Can they tell I'm an imposter? I wore my most holy sweater!"
And the dude just stood there, holding his bread, like "Well...?" So I blurted, "Oh! ThebloodofChristshedforyou! Sorry!"
Two weeks ago, I got another email from the administrative assitant in the worship department. Yes, we have an entire department devoted to worship. You're wondering how I've managed to avoid a lightning strike, aren't you?
This email asked me, at short notice, to be Assisting Minister. To do a job with the word "minister" right in the title. Again, lacking a good reason to say No, I agreed. She sent me the script for the service (I'm sure it's not called a script, but what the hell do I know?), and I had to read a prayer that was a page and a half long! Immediately, my mouth dried up, and butterflies with razor-sharp wings set up housekeeping in my large intestine.
But it got worse. The Prayer of the Day is where you pray for every possible person and thing that the congregation and ministers can think of, 95 percent of which is prescribed by the church year and such. However, there's a place in the prayers for the Assisting Minister to pray for a few things that are current and important and whatever.
Which means that I had to come up with timely and deserving people to pray for. Which also means that I had to ask someone what to pray about.
Now, I know a lot about Chicago politics because they are a constant source of entertainment. And I know a bit about U.S. politics because my dream of living in a cave has yet to be realized. But I sheepishly here admit my ignorance of world events. Unless they talk about it on WLS AM, or my Oslo cousins email me something, I am sadly unaware. And until O*P*I quits making up new nail polish names every damn season, there just won't be enough room in my brain to remember the current state of every country.
As in all times I trouble, I ran to Chris (which is just Christ without the T on the end), and he directed me to BBC.com. After much deliberation, I decided on:
We pray for the people of Sri Lanka affected by the civil war there. We pray for the people of Mexico struggling with the increased violence between the drug cartels and the federal government.
I'm not sure these people are any more deserving of prayer than anyone else around the world, I just wanted to sound current and edgey, like I knew what the hell I was talking about. And it worked! Or at least, I assume it did, as no one mocked me after the service.
In fact, several people even came up to me and said, "You should be a pastor!"
If Jeebus hadn't risen from the grave, he'd be rolling in it right now.
Comments
I can't believe you didn't take my suggestion to pray for heather's boob job. or perhaps to pray for the end of relationship-related reality TV. what kind of assistant pray-person are you?? ? ?
Posted by: heather at March 12, 2009 03:17 PM
"You should be a pastor!" Buah ha ha ha ha ha haaaaaa ha ha ha haaaaaa ha aah hee...
Posted by: Billi at March 14, 2009 10:35 AM
This is very similar to my first experience as lector. During communion some one stared at me for a full 10 seconds before I could remember what to say.
Posted by: Juli at March 31, 2009 05:00 PM