gluten-free jesus

food list

breakfast: two vegan banana muffins

lunch: naked juice's protein juice, black bean soup, salad 

dinner: black bean soup, salad from panera

snack: green tea, soy chai tea from new wave cafe, vegan chocolate chip cookie from paper moon bakery

origin of a item

new wave cafe in logan square is my favorite coffee shop in chicago, hands down. the coffee is delicious, the baristas are sassy (but they really know their coffee!) and the food is perfect. its not far from my apartment and they're open late... so, its one of my favorite haunts. 

i appreciate that new wave has several vegan baked goods and most of those delicious treats were made by paper moon bakery, also a logan square business. i'm grateful that i need only go about half a mile from home to get good, locally roasted coffee to pair with a vegan cookie that i didn't have to make myself. absolutely not healthy, but i'm working on the final draft of my thesis--i'm just trying to be awake!

theological reflection

wednesdays at mccormick mean community worship. i had not planned to go to worship today (see: finishing thesis), but i got to school just as worship was beginning, and i wandered in.

this year (as far as i know) is the first year we've consistently had gluten-free wafers at worship for communion. in the past i've had a negative attitude toward having wafers on the side--why can't the bread itself be gluten-free? when we have the wafers on the side, we separate the body of Christ.

i've known about my sensitivity to gluten for a little longer than six months, and that knowledge has changed how i think about gluten-free options in communion. in the fall, i continued to take the "regular" bread, because that meant that i got to share the same bread as the rest of the community. it meant that i got to participate in the same way that everyone else did.

but my sensitivity to gluten manifests itself in anxiety. a little gluten is fine; i'm ok with even a sandwich. a lot of gluten will make me antsy, cranky, and skittish... i lose any sense of peace, and i lose any sense of control. while partaking in the "regular" communion bread was never enough to make me anxious, i did have to be careful about how that communion bread limited the rest of my eating for the day. i was constrained.

taking the gluten-free wafer in communion is now a reminder for me that life in Christ is freeing. Jesus does not offer me anxiety in this world that is so full of confusion and fear and wandering. Jesus offers me peace.

so taking the gluten-free wafer is an act of faith and an act of meeting God's gift of peace. its an act of claiming who i am, claiming that God loves me in all my gluten-free-ness. its an act of accepting the peace of Christ and saying no to the anxiety that is not mine to hold on to.

la paz de christo este con ustedes

some more thoughts on communion and gluten-free (but from a Catholic poinst of view): http://www.triumphdining.com/blog/2009/04/27/catholicism-and-celiac-sprue/