Capture Words: doppelganger

Benediction in Sourdough

After a busy grade school week
of whispered secrets, chased
boys and tetherball,
late 70s Sundays arrived
on a northbound passage to church.

Not just any vanilla sanctimony-filled
sermon for our Seattle sojourn.
We heard words
spilled from the lips of a
Doppelganger for Jesus.
The light brown-haired version
of American Christianity
wore white robes and
strapped sandals that filled
the bill. Our Sunday Jesus
held us in awe and spoke
with the gentle certainty
that limited sibling scuffles in pews.

As Jesus spoke, damsel flies
danced in Bible marginalia.
We found our names
on whisper thin pages
of books titled Matthew and
Titus, traced fingers
across red-printed words of the
Son, and counted who begat whom.
We reveled as Samoan hymn songs
sung heaven-rafter-ward bulged
both building and spirit.

After services we towed the line
in exodus: surrendering tentative
hands that disappeared in the
large clasping grasp of Jesus as
he pumped our arms in farewell.

Ceremony concluded:
South Seattle side stop
for final communion. Over
breakfast with family friends,
adults talked Sunday Jesus
while we chased skittish grey
kittens who hid from kids
under skirted beds in empty rooms.

Blessed with sourdough
pancakes, we converted
bites of sharp tang and buttered
bliss into a maple syrup wafer
tying our experience
together in fellowship.

Now, when the Religious Right
singles out Sunday church skippers,
stamping them with a scornful
scarlet “S” for sinner,
they count me among
the bad bunch.
But judge as they may,
they shouldn’t cast stones.
I shared sourdough with Jesus.