Page 89 of Loving the Sinner
“Sounds good, baby.” I reply.
A middle-aged white man with a bald head stands at the podium and introduces himself as Brother Casey, the first counselor of the ward welcoming all the visitors. His eyes snag on me and he visibly flinches before he continues and avoids looking in my direction the rest of the time.
I lean over to Elli and whisper, “Who’s brother is he? Are the three white men up there all related?”
Elli covers her mouth to hide her laughter, and leans over to say, “No, that’s how they refer to people who don’t have higher titles. Like, I was Sister Monson when I was called on.”
Brother Casey gives the agenda for the meeting, and then everyone opens the green books scattered throughout. Elli and Izzy share one, and I lean over to read the chords and the lyrics.
They’re singing an upbeat hymn calledCalled to Serve.I assume it has something to do with missions. It honestly sounds a bit like a battle song. The congregation, as they call it, overpowers the organ in sound as people shout the hymn.
Immediately after the song ends, a petite blonde woman who looks to be about twenty-seven, holding an infant on her hip, steps up to the podium and offers what they call an opening prayer.
I lean over and whisper in Elli’s ear, “Is it a rule you have to be blonde?”
Elli just shakes her head and tries to contain her laughter again.
Once the woman is done praying, the brother dude gets up again and calls a bunch of names and gives them jobs like “relief society second counselor” or “elder’s quorum president.” I make a mental note to ask Elli what those mean later.
When he concludes his business, there’s another song. This one is monotone and boring, titledAs Now We Take the Sacrament.
As the people sing, I watch the three young boys around Luke’s age sitting at the table that looks like it has a body on it, unfold some of the sheets and begin… tearing up bread? I can’t fully see from here, but that’s what it looks like.
When the song is done, one of the boys disappears behind the table and a voice begins reading a prayer that talks about the bread being the body of Jesus.
Okay so that’s really fucking weird.
But then again, Catholics do something similar, right?
Then a parade of eight boys go up to the three sitting at the bench, take a tray of bread from them, then begin passing it out. One stands at one end of a bench, one at the other, and they trade off directions of the bread passing.
I watch the tray come down our row, and I lean into Elli and ask, “Am I supposed to eat the bread?”
She subtly shakes her head no, and murmurs “We aren’t allowed to.”
It must be because we aren’t “worthy,” like she was talking about earlier.
Imagine, not being worthy to eatbread.
I grab the tray when Elli passes it to me and hand it over with a smile. The kid looks at the tattoos showing on my forearms and snatches the tray up and steps away quickly.
Once everyone has had the bread, the boys sit back down, another guy disappears behind the table, and he reads another prayer that’s essentially the same, but talks about the water being the blood of Jesus.
What the hell kind of sick shit is this?
When they start the passing of the water the same way they did the bread, I lean over to Elli. “I thought his blood was supposed to be wine.”
“That’s the Catholics.”
“Seems like they’re doing it better, then.” I mutter, and Izzy must’ve overheard because I see her shoulders shaking with laughter. I look over and catch Louise’s eye and if looks could kill, I’d be dead right now.
I pass along the water tray, which honestly just looks like little shot glasses of vodka, and the kid scurries along.
Once everyone’s got the water, the boys sit back down and then Brother Casey comes back to announce the speakers. They’re sitting up on a row of seats in front of the piano.
The first speaker looks to be an eight year old child who gives a short talk about how one time she was really sick with a fever, but her daddy gave her a blessing and it broke a few hours later and she was all better.
It was cute, but from a logical standpoint, the fever broke by itself. It wasn’t because of the blessing.
