The body

Matt declared Sunday a day of rest and advocated staying home from church. I was all for skipping the walking and metro-ing, but I still wanted some pew time. So Matt strolled from the north wing to the south wing of our apartment (aka, took two steps) and googled Pasadena churches. Heck, we live in the city that's home to one of the largest seminaries in the world. Seemed like there could be a little sweet worship closer to home.

We ended up at Lake Avenue Church -- which is almost as close to our bedroom as is the bathroom. Seriously, we can see the church from our balcony. Of course, as soon as we stepped onto the campus, we turned around to face our apartment building and said, "Hey, look, there's our balcony!" (Coupla dorks sometimes, but we keep each other amused.)

Much about the church was nice. It's been YEARS since we sang a hymn. There were kneelers in the pews, and when it came time for corporate prayers, folks of all ages weren't shy to plop those babies down and warm them up. And the offering plates were offering plates! We've been at casual churches for so long, plastic paint buckets and baskets had become the standard. When Matt felt the plate's heft, he nodded appreciatively and whispered, "Wow ... metal."

Funny story: it was Communion Sunday (yay! I got so excited -- Mosaic does not practice communion, and I'd been missing it dearly). I happily plucked my bit of cracker off the tray and balanced it on my knee while I waited for my tiny juice cup. When it was time to take the body of Christ, I popped it in my mouth and realized the cracker had probably been queued up on the tray since the early 1970s. I liked that I could hear several hundred people crunching their communion ... but I thought, "Huh. The body of Christ is stuck in my teeth."

And then I got very still and thought, "Yes."