I am not the most spiritually devout person in the world, at least not in the sense of attending church. I have never believed I had to be present in a building on a Sunday morning in order to commune with a higher power. I live in the suburbs and I don’t think anyone would argue with me about this. Growing up in a small town, life was different. It was an unspoken misdemeanor to not attend church on a Sunday. I can recall my parents waking us up early in the mornings to try to get us ready. It was always a fight. There are times they gave up halfway through and we never made it. Why we didn’t hang up our ‘church pants’ from the week before?...why did we ball them up and now we have no time to iron them? Enough profanities were thrown around on a Sunday morning before getting to church that all the penance in the world wouldn’t deliver us from those sins.
It was always a fight, that is, unless there was the famous ‘covered dish lunch’ to look forward to after the services. I would sit through the sermon with a glaze over my eyes just thinking about the delicacies that awaited me. The old ladies at the church would push together tables so that it formed one long table that had to be a mile long. All the people would put their contributions on the tables. Bowl after bowl of jello salads, deviled eggs, fried chicken, and on a separate table every kind of cake, pie, brownie, and cookie you could think of. It was truly a divine feast in honor of the King of Kings.
When church was over all the children would run as fast as they could to get in line. If we were lucky enough the pastor would bless the food during their sermon to expedite the process. I’d grab a paper plate and race through the first line. I’d put a deviled egg on there and maybe one piece of chicken and immediately sit down to eat it. We weren’t allowed to get to the desserts until we had our meal. There were loose guidelines as to how much we were supposed to consume before entry to the desserts was granted. My brother just put a scoop of baked beans on his plate and that sufficed, but I was never one to toe the line as much as him.
After inhaling our food we waited for confirmation from our parents that it was ok to run to the desserts. To be the first one to the table was a distinct honor because you got to tear into every pristine pie and cake there was. We’d fill our plates so high we had to use two hands to get it back to the table, always making sure to skip anything with fruit in it. Fruit is practically a vegetable.
You never forget the moment that you lose your innocence. The moment when the band-aid of childhood gets ripped off and you see the world for what it is. For me, it was a Sunday afternoon just as the one described above. I had finished my meal and had my plate piled high with dessert. I had been the first one at the table and had the honor of running the knife through a beautiful chocolate cheesecake. I could only imagine whatever old lady staying up all night to painstakingly make this thing from scratch. Her poor arthritic hands aching as she stirred and decorated, transferring nothing but love for the Lord and all his children.
I sat at the table, a smile on my face, and picked up about half a piece of cheesecake with my fork. I put it in my mouth, slowly closed my eyes, and exhaled as I started to squish it on my tongue to savor every ounce of holy goodness. Immediately my eyes opened, my face turned green, and I spit it out of my mouth as fast as I could and started wiping off my tongue with a napkin. There, in a muddled mass of gelatinous cheese and chocolate was a familiar and unmistakable, small, white, ball. Yes. I had just narrowly avoided eating a mothball. And now every tastebud in my mouth was tainted with that unmistakable stink only intended to kill insects or alert people that you may or may not have a problem with moths eating your clothes.
At that moment the curtain had been pulled back. As I gagged, I looked around the room. What monster could have done this? How could they have desecrated this celebration of togetherness and divine fellowship? And then I realized that the old lady I pictured lovingly making this cheesecake, this fried chicken, these deviled eggs. She was not crouched over a stove with arthritic hands putting love in every morsel the night before. No, she just threw this together around the same time I was looking for my ‘church socks’ under my bed. Just as hurried to get it done and over with as I was. Not even caring to look in her spring-pan for debris before she threw the cake in the oven.
A piece of me died right then and there. As I watched other’s eating away, adult and child alike, I realized that I was now different. I had just had my Last Supper. I have not and will not eat at pot luck to this day for fear of whatever unknown object will find its way in my mouth. I have a hard time accepting food from anyone I have not done a thorough background check on. And now, even if I do go to church, I don’t even worry about my khakis being wrinkled because apparently everyone is taking shortcuts. Some are just hidden under cream cheese and chocolate.