Home Service
Every Sunday, I hope that maybe this week, Dad will forget. There is no room in the social contract of the house for me to decline participating in service.
Some Sundays, I get lucky. Other Sundays, I can put it off until late, and beg off being tired. Sometimes, I can say I feel sick, and that works. Every time, I get a disappointed look from my dad; it is hard to tell if he is disappointed, or just disappointed in me.
The twisting in my gut says maybe it’s both.
It’s not even like I have the luxury of driving to an actual building, of being able to separate it from my dad and my home. Ever since we moved to Oregon, Dad hasn’t been able to find a church he likes, one that satisfies his religious tendencies and adheres to his particular understanding of the Bible. My Dad fancies himself a Biblical expert; when I talk about him, I refer to him as an amateur theologian. For now, there is not much I can do other than keep my head down and say what I think he wants to hear.
And so, when we go to church, it is at home. We walk into the dining room and Dad opens the safe. He removes his little chalice and the small plate that he places the Eucharist on, and from the bulk container of holy crackers, he removes only what will be consumed during the service: three slips of unleavened bread so thin you can almost see through them.
I serve as acolyte and chalice bearer. There is at least some ceremony, when attending the actual brick-and-mortar building of a church, in putting on the robes and walking down a row of pews up toward the altar. There, at least, I am performing for strangers as part of the altar guild, participating as a side character in their own private spiritual theatre. I am no longer myself, but a holy pawn on the chessboard of the altar. At home, it is embarrassing, and I am humiliated; I carry the cross from the front door to the table while holy music plays tinnily from the speakers in my dad’s phone. I place the cross on the table and I sit down in a dining room chair; every time we have service, we have to shrink the leaf in the dining room table and move it to accommodate a more altar-like setup. Then I sit, for an hour, and I say my lines without any intonation and listen to Dad read the Bible and talk at us (sometimes, if I am particularly unlucky, I will be stuck reading some of the segments) and I stand next to my brother holding the cross for the gospel. Then it is time for Communion, and I say my lines, comforting at least in their familiarity, the mechanical ease with which they fall from my lips. Dad serves himself the wine, then I serve it to my little brother, and then I place the chalice back on the table; I do not drink because I find the wine disgusting.
With the Communion over, there is a short silent time for prayer. I sit directly across from Dad, watch his head bowed in silent prayer, and I am filled with guilt that I am not praying, that I cannot pray, could not even if I tried. So instead, my mind wanders to how miserable I am, and how I hate sitting still, and how, when eighteen arrives in two long short years, when I am a grown-up, I will never have to do this again.
Service closes out with a few more lines, and then it is my job to once more pick up the cross from the table. Dad plays music again, and I walk from the table to the front door, a mix of the same familiar humiliation at performing a ritual for no one and relief that finally, it is over, and I can go to my room and seethe at Dad.
I do not seethe at God, because I cannot bring myself to believe he is real.