A few weeks ago, I direct messaged Brian at Way Station One on the Twitter and asked him if he would write for very Much Later every now and again. I figured it was a long shot because his writing is MUCH better than mine. It proved to be worth a try though, because here’s the first of hopefully many wonderful stories from a great writer!

My earliest memories of church are of taking shots of Jesus’ blood.

Once a month, whether you needed it or not, our quaint white church celebrated communion. plastic squirt bottles would be filled with purple welch’s grape juice to fill the little plastic cups and one of the senior ladies would prepare unleven bread, cut into bite sized squares. these would be laid out on shiny silver plates and layed on the wooden altar for blessing.
Pastor would stand in the front and tell us we were eating body and blood, which delighted us little ones, particularly those that were enamored with Anne Rice novels, fine young cannibals that we were. This was all a preamble though, to the feast that awaited as soon as the big words were done. Frankly, we got lost in the -cations (sanctification, justification etc.), though filed them away for major points in scrabble, while we doodled on our bulletins and fantasized about afternoon battles in the woods.
After the benediction, we ran down the aisle, passed the organ to one of the back rooms where all the leftovers from communion were taken. This was a well kept secret that our cabal guarded to make sure there were still plenty left to fill our gullets. We would munch of crispy flesh and take shots of blood until our stomachs ached and our white shirts were streaked with purple rorshacht blots.
One time Jonathan ate so much he puked, ringing the toilet with lumpy purple morsels that made the most horrendous smell.
Jesus’ last supper was our snack. His body that hung on the felt cross this week would be giving us the thumbs up next week as He ate fish for breakfast with Peter, and Eric would get frustrated again when had him looking for Hezikiah in bible drills. The extent of our relationship was our heads and our stomachs, missing our hearts in the middle.
Faith was something private, not personal, so we only believed what we were taught or assumed by watching those around us, as we followed the great omission.

If you like what you read, make sure you check out his blog at Way Station One