So there we were, at the kitchen table, celebrating the sacrament of the Kleenex box.  It was one of those inelegant moments of smeared mascara and a dripping nose, but it was a real moment, one of many around that kitchen table.  We took a breath so as to go on, only to see a friend arrive.

And then another friend, and then another friend, and before you knew it, we were all sitting around the kitchen table.  If any of us had been in our right mind, we would have scrounged up some cookies and tea, or retrieved the previous night’s Halloween candy; but no, we were celebrating the sacrament of Kleenex and tears, and nothing else was needed at the table but us and our running noses.

The conversation was as ordinary as it could be.  We talked about little things, and huge things.  Where are you going this weekend, what does Thanksgiving look like, how’s your dad, how’s the move.  It wasn’t that we were avoiding the elephant in the room, but we weren’t dissecting and classifying it either.

Saints do that, I suppose.  They come into unholy situations and by their love and light, make it, if not holy, then at least bearable with armor that looks like a favorite scarf and weapons that look more like plowshares than swords.

Then I went to pray.  All of us did.  It was An Important Prayer, and I did so want to get it right.  Except our other saint decided to snore quite loudly and rudely through the whole thing.  I giggled and stammered as I invoked the Creator, Holy God, Potentate of Time, Ineffably Sublime.  “From the sublime to the ridiculous” best categorizes the prayer.  But it was real, as real as the wadded Kleenex and the kitchen table, as real as that friendship, as real as that love.

In the end, a hymn saved me.  “So we pray for strength for today and bright hope for tomorrow.”  And the saints said Amen.

May you find saints around your kitchen tables too.