Taking Communion, Again

UNLESS MY CALCULATIONS are incorrect, which is always possible, this next Sunday will be "Communion Sunday" at the church, which happens once a month. Its either the last Sunday in the month, or the first, my memory fails, again. Once again I will participate willingly, with little or no stress and anxiety this time. The first time, when I found out that the communion service would be conducted, I momentarily freaked, and firmly resolved to refrain abstain, as I have, (had) all my life. But when I realized that the communion was brought to all congregants in their seats, without anybody required to approach the alter and kneel, I relented, and took communion. the holy sacrament. I lived throught it, lived to tell about it, and frankly, felt, and still feel, unchanged. I cannot coneive of there ever coming a time when communion doesn't seem strange, weird, bizarre to me. For my taste, the symbolic consumming of the body and blood of Christ as a tangible albeit symbolic act of achieving total communion with not only Christ but also God - is, quite, simply, going a bit far, becoming a bit too zealous and fanatical about the particulars of doctrine and dogma, a bit too literal and preoccupied with expressing a spiritual connection in physical terms through ritual. Similarly, the notion of having my sins washed away in the blood of Christ does not appeal to me, for another rexample. The Christian religion did not emerge in a cultural or religious vacuum. Goethe said: "The Christian religion is an abortive political revolution which turned moral." By this he of course was referring to the Roman Empire, and its domination, colonial rule and governence of, the Jewish people in their homeland of Palestine, including Judea, whence Jesus, the Jesus story, originated. The Jews were not looking for a spiritual savoir who would grant them entrance into heaven after death. They had something much more tangible in mind; a champion, conquering, military style hero savior who would lead them to liberation from the oppressive Romans. Somehow Joshua ben Joseph (Jesus), not really the conquering hero warrior type, was able to disabuse them of this fantasy, and persuade a significant number of them to accept the spiritual salvation process instead. Jesus must have been a very good natural politician. Whether or not any of this actually happened, and indeed it seems as if it did, it was writen about, with many different versions, by enough ancient Greek writers that it became convincing. All this washng sins away with blood and achieving communion with the body and blood of Christ got added on over the centuries, as the cult grew into a formal, organized religion, and came to dominate much of human culture, especially in the western hemisphere. When I sing about the bloody stuff in gospel singing group, I just don't think about it. I'm never going to like it, so,why bother? The Christian religion still reminds me of an ancient fertility cult, complete with blood sacrifices of human virgins and animals, and I still think of the Bible as a fascinating collection of ancient manuscripts, a miniature library of ancient writings, a valuable insight into ancient culture, primitive, barbaric, obscene, bloody and violent, with, as Mark Twain said: "some noble poetry and clever fables, and a great quantity of obscnity". I'll never be a "Christian" per se, but I am a pantheist, not an atheist, happy to attend church every Sunday to commune with the universe and listen to good messages, in my own way, in concert with the ways of others.