The (Onion Flavored) Body of Christ

The international church that I attend here in Vienna has been a great place to call my church home for the last year or so. The people are warm and welcoming, and I've learned a lot about how diverse the body of Christ is through this family of believers. Since the church has been without a pastor for the past few years, the elders and other church leaders divide weekly responsibilities among themselves, resulting in a delightful blend of unpredictability. Each week it's anyone's guess as to what the service will contain...but it could include an African-style baby dedication with singing and dancing down the aisle, a testimony from a Middle Eastern believer, or a guest musical performance. This unpredictability has given me plenty of opportunities to laugh, as well as to learn flexibility and openness to the different ways the Lord works.

One particular Sunday, the celebration of communion became one of those opportunities. When we were invited to partake of the bread, I put the cracker in my mouth and began to pray, Thank You, Lord, for Your...onion flavored body??? Indeed, the cracker was onion flavored, no doubt due to an oversight on the part of whoever was responsible for buying the communion supplies that week. It was a bit of a challenge to maintain my meditative mood (not to mention my composure) after that.

Requiem in a Dream

As previously stated here on AustriAnne, I have a very active and strange dreamlife. This is something to which I've not only grown accustomed, but is also a pretty reliable form of personal amusement. I felt like I had pretty much experienced it all in terms of dreams - I've dreamt that I was pregnant, married, a murder witness, and even that I was executed. I've woken up screaming, laughing, crying (not real tears, but real sobs), and so angry that I've wanted to punch the offender (who, of course, hadn't done anything in real life). But last night was a new experience for me; I actually composed a poem in my sleep.

In the dream, it was actually a song, but the tune was lost to the mists of my personal dream world. The funniest part is that the poem is basically a marriage proposal to Billy Boyd - the Scottish actor who plays Pippin in "The Lord of the Rings" trilogy. We were riding on a horse through the forest with my sister (yes, all three of us cozily seated on one horse) when I began singing my song of proposal. I was only able to compose part of the song-poem before I woke up, but I got as far as the first stanza:

Billy Boyd, Billy Boyd, why won't you marry me?
I'll be your bride, stand by your side,
For all eternity.

I didn't say that it was actually good poetry. I was never that keen of a poet, even in my waking hours!