WRITING & POETRY
The Stripping of the Altar
Chapel is an everyday occurrence at my school. Students recite pray for memorization turning spirituality into a robotic form where all meaning is lost. A beautiful alter is set up where a lawyer turned priest, with glasses and a genuine smile, prays for the students as they day dream in front of him. I pay more attention than others during services, but that's just it. A service that's what it is, every day with the sound of a bell at 12:25. It is a service that takes place, but I don't see it that way. I forget it is a service. I forget it is a house of worship. Worship of a faith that dangles around my neck all day. I forget that the altar is an altar. I am slow to notice when the cloths and colors changes as the church calendar moves forward. I am slow to take away anything from the rituals, the kneeling, the prayers, even the songs that at a time were the reason I loved church. I am not an overly religious person, and the truth is I will always believe in God, and the story of Jesus, but I don't know what all I believe in the idea of Christianity. I am selfish with my faith. I want to keep my own personal relationship with it. Keep it real and laid back. Keep it to the point, because the world is complicated enough with out tacking rules onto religions. How to look. How to dress to go practice your own religion. I don't think Jesus wore a suit as he professed the name of God.
It is another Good Friday service that our school is performing on a Thursday. Grandparents are here in the chapel and the thick, layered robes are draped over the priest. Choir is split up, boys on the right, girls on the left. The Priest and Acolytes are pushed towards the back with the altar in the center of us all. The post-communion hymn finishes and a silence soothes its way down the aisles. Then I notice, for the first time I see…the Priest solemnly begins stripping the altar carrying each candle with two hands as if it were an egg. Slowly folding the rich fabric that once held the flesh and blood of Christ, letting each fold land on top of the next like melted butter. He walks to the front of the altar and as his glasses slide down his nose, he says a prayer, not as an act, not to show how religious he is, but just to pray. The Stripping of the Altar, maybe there is more to rituals.
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7/31/05