A week ago today I was sitting at a funeral at a Catholic Church and watching with interest as individuals took part in the ritual of the Eucharist, or Holy Communion. As a non-baptized non-Christian, I did not take part in the ritual myself (as so instructed by the priest as well), but I did watch carefully, and grew more intrigued by this fascinating word “communion.”
Defining Communion
Do a quick Google search on the word “communion” and a variety of definitions present themselves including Greek, Latin and Biblical roots of the word. Below are some that I found just today:
*Communion literally means "sharing." It's breaking bread together.
*The word "communion" comes from King James Bible translation of the Greek word for "sharing."
*The Latin root is com-mun'-is, meaning participation by all. The same root is used for the words common, community, and communicate.
*It's supposed to bring everyone together as one body.
*A communion is an intimate connection.
*Many people enjoy hiking in the woods in order to have a sort of communionwith nature.
*When you connect in a meaningful way with something, or intimately share your feelings with someone, you experience a communion.
*The word implies a deep connection, particularly a spiritual one.
* A Communion, with a capital C and also called Holy Communion, is a Christian religious service involving consecrated bread and wine.
*The Latin root of communion is communionem, meaning "fellowship, mutual participation, or sharing."
*Communion may refer to: Eucharist or the Lord's Supper, the Christian rite involving the eating of bread and drinking of wine, reenacting the Last Supper
*A group of persons having a common religious faith; a religious denomination:
*Association; fellowship.
*Interchange or sharing of thoughts or emotions; intimate communication.
*The act of sharing, or holding in common; participation.
*The state of things so held.
I must tell you, I love several of these definitions and associations with the word communion (more of that in a bit), but my initial response is one of irony because as I sat at that funeral and cried with my friend who had lost her beloved grandmother, and felt great empathy for all of the 7 children, 14 grandchildren and another 14 great-grandchildren, I know I was in a larger state of communion (small “c”) by any number of the definitions supplied by my Google search. And yet, by the priest’s very narrow definition, I was absolutely not included, or a part of my Catholic friend and her Catholic family as they participated in the very specific and exclusive Holy Communion (capital “c”).
Please do not misunderstand me, I am not opposed to groups of individuals having their own rituals and rites. That is part of what groups people together and helps us realize the common threads that bind us together in fellowship, another definition for communion. For many years I went to Al-Anon meetings, and what linked us together was having a family or friend who was alcoholic. That was the criteria for determining who could come to an Al-anon meeting. So does that exclude? Sure it does. But the exclusion was not the point. The point was the creation of a special space of inclusionfor people with the same shared experience in this one regard.
Maybe this is one of the paradoxes of this captivating word communion- that it could be so broad and all encompassing (as in the definition “the state of things so held”) and so narrow and specific (the Eucharist).
On a personal level, I wrote in this blog a few days ago that I believe I am currently in a spiritual life stage where the task at hand is to focus on connection with others in the creation of beloved community. I had made the analogy of spiritual life stages as similar to 20th century psychologist Erik Erikson’s psychosocial developmental stages where he identified a specific internal crisis that needed to be resolved before one could move on to the next stage (e.g. Trust vs. Mistrust or Identity vs. Role Confusion). Along the same lines, in this spiritual life stage that I am in now, the crisis to resolve would be Communion vs. Vulnerability.
Communion as an Act of Courage
I move through most hours of the day, most days of the week with a veil between me and the world. It’s like there is a space or a moat that surrounds me. A distance small enough that I am able to reach across the divide to receive nourishment from others, and vice versa, but far enough to keep me safe from hurt and harm thereby allowing me to mitigate the intense discomfort of vulnerability that I carry with me everywhere I go.
I wasn’t always this way. In fact, I can visually see in photographs of me over the years when the veil began to go up, and, as I’ve worked on this in more recent years, I can visually see in photographs as I’ve gotten older when and where this veil comes down.
I was recently looking over a new Blog site called Brain Pickings by Maria Popova, and she wrote a very interesting blog about the autobiography of a neurologist on whom the Robin Williams movieAwakenings was based, Dr. Oliver Sacks. In it, Ms. Popova quoted Dr. Sacks’ reflection at 80 years-old on his own relationship with others, a.k.a. capacity for communion. He said:
“I am shy in ordinary social contexts; I am not able to “chat” with any ease; I have difficulty recognizing people (this is lifelong, though worse now my eyesight is impaired); I have little knowledge of and little interest in current affairs, whether political, social, or sexual. Now, additionally, I am hard of hearing, a polite term for deepening deafness. Given all this, I tend to retreat into a corner, to look invisible, to hope I am passed over. This was incapacitating in the 1960s, when I went to gay bars to meet people; I would agonize, wedged into a corner, and leave after an hour, alone, sad, but somehow relieved. But if I find someone, at a party or elsewhere, who shares some of my own (usually scientific) interests — volcanoes, jellyfish, gravitational waves, whatever — then I am immediately drawn into animated conversation…
Reading this passage was in and of itself a moment of communion for me, as defined above as an experience of deep connection. In it, I spotted a fellow weirdo like me, who was hanging his freak flag proudly! Someone who probably understands why activities like people-watching in Harvard Square, sitting in a Unitarian Universalist pew at church on Sunday, snuggling with a 23 pound black and white cat named George, reading 13th century poetry by a Sufi theologian, deeply listening and witnessing the lives of my dear patients, and even writing this small blog (by my pseudonym!) would all be acts of communion for me.
I remember in particular a moment of deep communion with a complete stranger that lasted for all of 30 seconds. It was a few years ago and winter time. We had just gotten a fresh snow the night before, and we were having one of those perfect-blue-sky New England days where the sun is reflecting off the snow so brightly that you needed sunglasses, and I was out in one of my favorite game reserves cross country skiing.
I had been contentedly skiing alone in the woods for quite some time when I came upon a fellow cross country skier coming from the opposite direction. The skier was a woman, about my size, so as we glided by each other we were able to see eye to eye. At the moment of passing, my fellow skier made eye contact with me, smiled broadly and said sweetly, “aren’t we so lucky?” It was a bliss-filled rhetorical question that absolutely mirrored my own internal experience so closely that in that oh-so-very-brief encounter I felt kinship with this stranger. I felt communion.
So maybe what defines communion is not as concrete as the actual elements (the who, what, when, where) that come together, as much as the quality of that experience. In other words, communion could come in all shapes and sizes, but thecommonality is the experience of deep abiding connection where, for a moment or a lifetime or anything in between, you feel a part of something larger than yourself.
Communion as the Antidote to Vulnerability
Now, however, I want to take that a step further. With the intention of leaving behind this veil that I continue to carry with me, similar to Harry Potter’s invisible cloak he inherited from his parents, I would like to extend myself further into the terrifying realm of vulnerability.
Some ideas I am carrying with me as I embark on this spiritual life stage toward communion include: metta and mutuality.
I recently heard Buddhist teacher and author Sharon Salzberg, who has written and talked extensively about the practice of Loving Kindness Meditation, define the Pali word “metta” as either friendship or connection. Ms. Salzberg has said she spent many years solely practicing Loving Kindness Meditation or Metta Meditation which leaves me eager to find out for myself if this practice could help me to let go of my security-blanket-like-attachment to my veil so that I may swim deeper into the waters of vulnerability.
The other idea to help me with communion is mutuality. I have been keeping an ear out for folks who describe their vocation as one of mutuality. Thus far, the list has included yoga master Seane Corn, classical musician YoYo Ma, and Jesuit Priest Greg Boyle who works with former gang members in Los Angeles. Whether it be their yoga student, their audience, their mentee or parishioner, it seems these individuals have found the give and take of energy between them and another has both enhanced their craft and nourished their own needs for oneness and community. This seems a respectable path to follow, and these ideas, drawn from the wisdom of others, seem notable strategies for communion for me as well.
How about you? How do you experience or cultivate communion? In the act of communion, how do you let down your veil to expose vulnerability
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