Barefoot Bellringing

filled with simple things is how I bring communion to people.

It’s a willow basket that I bought on sale for 50% off.  It’s lined with a dollar store tea towel and under one side of the towel is a small pottery paten.  On top of the towel and the paten is a pottery chalice.  The towel gets folder over and inside the cup of the chalice is a small glass jar (it once held jam) that now contains hosts.  There’s a small bottle filled with wine and water that gets tucked in the other end of the basket.  Two white linen purificators tucked around all exposed glass and pottery ensure that nothing gets broken in transport.

I carry my basket the same way I’d carry any picnic basket.  It contains a special, sacred meal that has been prepared in front of our parish family, then taken into the community to a Bible Study group, or a shut in, or a person in hospital.  It’s also been brought out at the bedside of a person who is approaching the end of their life.

To anyone looking at it, it would appear a plain willow basket.  To me, it contains many stories…some are happy, some are sad, some are heartbreaking, and every one of them is real and true.

If the fabric of the basket could talk, if the towel could talk, if the vessels could talk they would tell many stories.  These stories that connect each recipient to each other; to bring each recipient into closer relationship with one another and with the one for whom we share this wonderful meal.

Today when I was walking to the hospital to visit a parishioner, a gentleman asked if I had a picnic planned.  I looked strangely at him and he gestured at the plain willow basket.  I told him I was visiting a parishioner and was bringing him communion, so in a way it was to be a picnic.

As I was walking home a construction worker asked if I was willing to share my lunch, gesturing at the plain willow basket.  I told him I had communion wine and bread and would be happy to share.  He smiled and said he was looking for something else.  I smiled and continued on my way.

A plain willow basket filled with ordinary, simple things.  Things made sacred and extraordinary by the people who share in it’s contents.  Brought closer together to share in something so beautiful and yet so ordinary, it almost defies description.

A plain willow basket.