ClobberBlog | Mormonism, Evangelical Christianity

Next week, the schedule for my husband’s ward will change to 9 AM – 12 PM, overlapping the time when I attend my own church from 9:30 – 11:45 AM. Since this was the last Sunday when we could conceivably visit both churches in one day, we decided to go out with one last “hurrah” and do it, even though it makes our church day perilously long.

I decided that we ought to pack lunches to eat between services, since the space between the end of my service and the beginning of his isn’t exactly a lot of time for going home for lunch. Unfortunately, we were out of bread for making sandwiches, and weren’t able to buy any on Saturday like we normally would on account of all of the stores being closed for Christmas. We settled on bringing along all of our sandwiching needs (mayonnaise, leftover turkey, lettuce, cheese, peanut butter, jelly) and picking up bread from the store on the way to my church. We don’t normally buy things on Sunday, but we figured, given the circumstances, we could make an exception for a loaf of bread.

Our schedule ran pretty smoothly as we attended my church and settled into a table in the foyer for lunch afterward, mingling with the other members of my congregation as they poured out of the service. Lunch at my church was a fantastic idea and we enjoyed ourselves very much. We then piled into our car and headed for the LDS ward, arriving with time to spare.

After the opening hymn, invocation and ward business, the bishop (who was conducting) got up to say that they had no bread for the Sacrament, so they were just going to sing hymns until someone came with bread. Apparently none of the teachers had shown up that day—I guess they’re usually the ones in charge of bringing bread?—and someone had rushed off to the store to grab some, but it was obviously going to be late.

Except that Paul and I had our loaf of bread sitting in the trunk of our car with our sandwiching supplies.

Paul rushed off to get it while the ward strayed from the program to sing “Joy to the World,” and when he returned with the bread, he walked clear up to the Sacrament table and began preparing it. He stayed at the Sacrament table for the duration of the Sacrament and said the blessing over the bread—in his dark red shirt and tie, too. He later said that he did not see any point in passing it off to someone else when he was perfectly capable of doing it himself.

I haven’t watched Paul in the act of very much LDS ritual stuff. He’s never administered the Sacrament since we’ve been married; in fact, he says he wears colored shirts specifically so that they won’t ask him to help with the Sacrament. I saw him give Harley her baby blessing and that was about it. Today I got to see him participate in LDS ritual for the first time since Harley was born, and I’ll admit, there was something cool about it (even if it is a ritual that is usually performed by 16 year-old boys). It’s a bittersweet feeling for me, watching and knowing that a woman is barred from doing the same. But it still gave me a (probably inflated) sense of pride in my husband.

And as I watched, I wondered how many people would ever know that it was not just a woman, but a non-member, who had inadvertently done the work of a teacher by getting the bread there in the first place.