I spent Christmas in the mountains of Tennessee. It's not romantic. It's not Johnny Cash's Chattanooga. It's the boonies, with too many white faces and rugged beards and camouflage hats.
That is just where my Aunt and Uncle live, and if nothing else proves that I'm stupid enough to go great lengths for family. But that is where I spent Christmas.
Specifically, I endured Christmas Eve in a basketball gym. The hoops were stored away, a stage was set, and a cheap manger arranged. A golden cross hung, overlooking the court. Out front, the socially awkward pastor/priest (?) shook hands with everyone entering, asking me personally where I came from.
My Aunt and Uncle are Lutherans. They're religious. They go every Sunday. I felt like Damien from The Omen just coming near the make-shift site of worship.
As I sat on the cold metal folding chair, I reasoned: it's for family, it's only an hour, just singing and a little story time. At the door, perky, middle-aged blondes handed out to each Christian the pamphlet of songs and a white candle. I was upset; not only was I forced to listen to some inbred country girl up on stage playing an off-tune clarinet for the new-born baby Jesus before the service, but now I had wonder why Lutherans go around with candles during mass.
The singing/chanting commenced. When I was young my parents tried to raise me Catholic. I remember fidgeting on the wooden pew in a yellow Sunday dress, not understanding a word that was spoken. I remember kneeling. Latin chants. Back then, I stressed over the part where I had to shake hands with strangers. "Peace be with you, Peace be with you..." It was gross, and I dreaded it coming...
Over 10 years later, I still hesitated to touch a stranger's skin.
The real fear, however, was in the wine and crackers. Once blessed, the flesh and blood of Christ. I only did it once, for Confirmation. For every service after that, I was expected, by the 10-foot crucified Lord that hung over the alter and stared down upon the congregation, to once again, consume the flesh and blood of my Lord and Saviour. For every service, my stomach turned, the cold sweat began, and I never worked up the nerve to perform that very intimate act with my lord.
How could I? He was monstrous! When the priest told us to bow our heads and pray, I would sneak terrified peaks at the crucifix. There He was, with bloodshot, agonized, accusing eyes; hands and feet nailed to wooden planks, small rivulets of blood trickling down; his skin taut against each bone of his ribcage; exposed; barely a loin cloth to cover his sin. It was horrendous - an image that haunted me for years.
Over 10 years later, there I was thinking about the Eucharist and that dreadful image of Jesus - now, however, the Damien inside me slightly relished the cannibalistic act.
***
I was still fidgeting with that damn candle. We had gone through 30 verses of 10 songs, the ritualistic sitting and standing, sitting and standing on command, shaking hands with the sweaty-palmed strangers behind us, and eating out God.
The Lutherans split off from Catholicism. The Catholics believed one can buy their way into heaven. Martin Luther, according to some notes he pinned to the front door of a church, did not. Luther, however, did not have a problem with Catholic obsession with symbolism. This is where the candle came into play.
After passing the collection basket, the lights dimmed, mood music played, and the bearded white men of Farragut lit the candle of the person sitting at the end of each row. That person lit the next person's, and so on, until I sat in simulated darkness, with nothing but a flickering flame to read the word of God.
And for a moment, something clicked.
I had never read by candlelight. It was beautiful. I wondered who else had never experienced this either... or was it just me? For centuries, reading by candlelight was the only way to see the written text past sunset. In the darkness, there is nothing but you, and the page; the rest of humanity is hidden, the dripping wax the only reminder of the physical world. With the onslaught of electricity and modernity, this intimacy with the page was mostly eradicated.
50 years from now, the only people who will have experienced a flame illuminating text will be the ones in third world countries, dirt-poor citizens of banana republics.
I try to fight off this terrible future. Now, I do all my reading at night, by candlelight. This is my religion - words, script - those are the blood, the flame, sex, the Eucharist, with the page. Hard binding. the altar.
Typing, I pray.
