Step Four and a Half

Thinking over the last step, I think I failed to convey the rather mundane texture of the experience. Once I brought in Tales of the Kingdom, that glamorized the idea of "becoming real." In actuality the real that I was was a very proud, angry, bitter woman checking a dirty job off of a dirty list. There wasn't any special manifestation of my best self or anything like that. It was just me, being me, exactly and only me--good, bad and rather ugly.
There is also a lingering Protestant glamor to the idea of the presence of Christ. Protestants, at least the ones I know, treat the presence of Christ as unusual experience to be courted and celebrated. They go to great lengths to insure the best possible atmosphere for a manifestation of Jesus in their midst. The Catholic experience is quite different. Catholics take it carefully, thoughtfully, respectfully for granted that Jesus will be theirs every Mass. This is more of what I experienced, not through the Host, but rather like sitting in the room with another person. Christ was just there. He wasn't necessarily particularly interested in me or anything else. It was as comfortable and mundane as sitting in a waiting room with a fellow patient.
The thing that makes the experience transformative is that it was transformative. Despite the ugliness of my reality and the ordinariness of Christ's presence I was healed in some measure. Perhaps it was finding Christ in the church that in my mind had the most strikes against it that helped me begin to understand that it isn't about our figuring it all out and getting it all right. It's about showing up. In any case, I keep showing up, and I keep getting better. Catholicism works for me.
This is a series that begins Here. This series continues Here.