It is time for our annual “Feast of Breads” worship service, sometimes called in our tradition “the bread communion.”
There are four annual ceremonial services at Live Oak, and you’ll find these at other UU congregations, too. Each one honors an aspect of community life:
Water Communion (end of summer): celebrates our individual journeys that merge and influence one collective journey.
Bread Communion: celebrates the heritage of each individual and honors how the life experiences of each member “feed” the rest of the community.
Fire Communion: acknowledges that each of us have our own individual journeys, sometimes painful, but because we are in community, we do not travel alone.
Flower Communion: celebrates the unique individuals who make up a community and how our community is richer and more beautiful through diversity.
The bread ceremony happens within the worship service. You are invited to bring a bread that is from your heritage or important to your family in some way. Just bring it with you and hold onto it. During the service, you’ll be invited to come forward with your bread and share a little about its significance. (And the meaning doesn’t have to be profound. There are always at least a couple of families who share something from HEB just because they enjoy it!) And yes, we will have gluten-free options.
We’ll have volunteers at tables in front of the chancel, slicing away. After everyone has brought their bread forward, you’ll be invited to come forward again to take several pieces of bread and a cup of cider. (Please no spreads – it slows the service down too much and can be messy.)
Personally, I am looking forward to this service perhaps more than I have before. Not just because I like bread 🙂 but because this gives us an opportunity to very literally feed each other. To share with one another. This past month, I believe, has given us reason to become distrustful of humanity, perhaps even bitter. This ceremony reminds me that communities of love and generosity are real.
Along with bringing bread, we need a few helpers for the ceremony. Sign up here: Bread Communion Volunteers.