Breaking bread apart

An hour North of me, right now, a small piece of my church family is breaking bread together. They started a few minutes ago, by now they've read the lessons for the day and our priest has said a little something about the Gospel. They have traded the Peace, perhaps they are right now. Together under the cozy white arch of the choir loft, with the little altar set with the simple "every day" crockery chalice. They are whispering peace in each other's ears and hugging one another.

I suppose somewhere in the world at any moment of the day some of our brothers and sisters are meeting and eating and celebrating. It is my little community at the moment, keeping up a chain of prayer and worship that stretches forward and back into eternity and left and right through space. In three, four, more dimensions of our reality.

I feel the distance. A tugging at my heart that wishes it were sharing the bread and the cup just now. I look out the window, away from the glowing eye of work and into the breathtaking beauty of sky so blue it hurts and clouds so white they bleed purity. And I can feel the eternal worship, I can almost sip the wine of prayer, I can almost taste the bread of praise. And I can feel the distance, for some reason, achingly close in this moment.

When I was a child I used to try to feel the reality of the world beyond my eyes and ears. I used to try to fathom that when someone walked out the door they continued to exist. I used to watch the faces in other cars as they sped past me and try, with effort like lifting a thousand pounds, to truly feel that they were real.

For just this moment, the length of a breath, the moment when the wafer snaps in that silent space; I know they are. I can feel them, there in my chest, too far away.