I first received the Eucharist in the shabby living room of the bungalow near campus where we were housesitting for a professor on sabbatical, a few of us gathered around the coffee table, among shelves of jumbled books. Dave falling asleep. Our jumpy Irish Setter mix biting Katie on the palm and Barb having to take her to get stitches, though I didn’t learn about this until later, as I didn’t learn many things.
Peter was the celebrant, the young Jesuit who talked with such ease and economy about Hegel and Sartre and Camus. How I loved those ideas. How I loved those beautiful structures.
But as I look back now the process of my conversion feels more like a matter of being carried along by moments and of living in the moment. I don’t remember the raising of the host or any of the words. I remember the dusty sunroom off the porch where in the evening we used to sit and watch Masterpiece Theater. Or sitting on the edge of the water bed one summer morning as I was waking up, sitting for a moment and looking down at the orange shag carpet and rubbing my face with my hands and feeling my face in my hands and thinking, this is me, this is my body.
from Light When It Comes (Eerdmans 2016)