The New Red Carpet

A very long time ago (in 1974) a choice was made to replace the stained and broken tiles with a fabulous red carpet.

All the pews were removed and then returned to the space. It smelled good and looked amazing.  Joy abounded.

A couple of weeks later was communion Sunday. That meant a pretty full church, silver trays with tiny glass cups, silver trays with cut-up pieces of bread, and everything piled on the communion table up by the choir loft.

The loaded table was covered with a huge pristine white cloth.

When the communion liturgy started, a couple of servers were assigned to remove the big cloth and get things ready to hand out to all the servers. Fred Moore and I had the job that day. Sadly, we were a bit clumsy, and as we removed the cloth, we dumped copious amounts of diced bread on the carpet - fortunately behind the table. I couldn’t decide whether to laugh or cry.

Fred was more practical. He was calmly scooping it up and piling it back on the serving trays.

Great idea, although he was also scooping up all the bits of red wool/lint (or whatever it was) that came off new carpeting.

Minister Don Frame just carried on. The servers carried on.

No one noticed or said a thing, and my pounding heart finally slowed down.

It was a memorable Communion time!

-by Dianne Cooper