⭐You Must Have Faith, My Son

I’ve never forgotten those words, told to me many years ago when I was not yet a teenager. I asked many questions. Perhaps too many. I was not satisfied with the answers. I always got the sense that my pastor, as kind and caring as he was, simply told me this when the questions became too difficult to answer.

One of my questions—an innocent question that an inquisitive child might ask—“Does the wine and bread actually change into the blood and body of Christ?” The Eucharist was a mysterious ritual to me. The adult members of my church, including my parents, participated in this ritual with such solemnity and fervency. I wanted to know. What really happened when you drank the wine. Since I was too young to partake of the ritual, I decided I would investigate and find out on my own. When I was old enough, I volunteered and became a choir boy at my church.

The bread? Kosher unleavened thin wafers. The wine… Manischewitz Concord Grape wine. I even tasted it in secret to see for myself what happened. It was wine alright. I stepped down from that position soon thereafter. Partly because I had completed my mission. And partly from guilt at not accepting what I was told and from having the youthful audacity to taste the communal wine when I was not supposed to.

What began was a lifelong quest for understanding and truth.

That quest for understanding never left. In junior high and then in high school I read books that my classmates would never touch. The writings of Carlos Castaneda, Eldridge Cleaver’s Soul on Ice and many others. I wondered. Why were we here on earth?

Until the next note in the margins...
— uMdali Light 🌿