Serving Communion

Serving Communion

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SERVING COMMUNION
by James H. Omvig

Jim and Sharon Omvig live in Tucson, Arizona. They are leaders in the National
Federation of the Blind, in their community, and in their church. Attitudes
toward blindness are changing in this country, and one of the reasons for this
is the steady, day-to-day effort of people like the Omvigs. Here Jim relates
an incident that took place in his church and how he and Sharon handled it:

"My goodness, things are so bad
over there at the church now that they even have the blind serving communion!"
So said an elderly, homebound member to one of her close friends and confidants
on a particular Monday morning.

The church in question was the one I
attended for several years in Baltimore, Maryland. The poor blind man who had
supposedly been so abused by this congregation was me. Here is how it all happened.

At the time of this incident I had been
blind for many years and had been an active member of this church for a short
time. Years earlier, I had had the great good fortune of encountering the National
Federation of the Blind, and I had experienced enormously valuable training
and insight. I had been taught (and had come emotionally to believe) that as
a blind person I was simply a normal human being who happened to be blind and
that the opportunities for me to work and participate fully in the world were
limitless. I had also learned that erroneous attitudes about blindness rather
than the physical condition of being blind are the most persistent problems
with which each blind person must deal on a daily basis.

Finally, I had come to understand fully
that as a successful blind person I had an obligation to do what I could to
help change those existing, negative public attitudes. I was living to the hilt
what I had been taught by the Federation. I had become an attorney and was the
director ofa major program of the Social Security Administration at its Baltimore
headquarters. Additionally, I was married to a wonderful wife, had a fine young
son, served as vice president of my Lions Club, was an active member of my church's
governing board, and was also active in the local chapter ofthe National Federation
of the Blind. My life was in every way normal, if busy.

A few weeks before the communion incident
occurred, I had been asked by the minister (we'll call him Bob) if I would be
willing to have my name placed in nomination to become one ofthe deacons of
the church. I agreed and, as church elections generally go, I was elected without
a hitch. It had not occurred to me that one of the duties of a deacon (at least,
at this church) is to serve communion at the Sunday service. Some time after
the election we had a day of planning and training. Early on, the minister Bob
came to my sighted wife (not to me) and said, "I'm making out the communion-serving
schedule of deacons for the year. Jim won't want to serve communion, will he?"

My wife Sharon is also well grounded
in proper attitudes about blindness and in the knowledge that we have a lot
of work to do to make things better. She knew as well as I that Bob's real question
was, "Since Jim is blind, he wouldn't be able
to serve communion, would he?" Even
so, she just smiled and said, "I think you had better
ask Jim about that."" Then she came to me in another meeting
and told me about Bob's question.

What was I to do? One thing was clear:
It would not be helpful or even desirable for either of us to become upset or
angry. Far from useful, such a reaction would have served only to teach the
minister (and anyone else who happened to learnof it) that the blind are not
only helpless and incompetent but also rude and ill-tempered on top of it.

Frankly, I had not given a thought to
the fact that deacons serve communion or the way in which I as a blind person
might accomplish the task. I determined then and there, though, that it would
be important for me to do it and that I would find a way! The National Federation
of the Blind had taught me that. I decided to do it both because it was my duty
as an elected deacon and because this would be a marvelous opportunity through
quiet example for me to teach hundreds of people
at a single stroke about blindness.

We decided that I would just wait until
Bob came to speak with me. But, of course, he did not come. Some time in the
early afternoon Bob went to Sharon again and said, "Jim won't want
to serve communion, will he?" Again
she said, "You need to talk to Jim about that." And again she told
me, and I waited a little longer.

Finally, toward the end of the day, Bob
came to Sharon yet a third time. This time he sounded a little impatient. He
said, "You know, I have to
finish this communion schedule today.
Jim won't want to be on it, will he?" This
time Sharon said, "Come along, Bob; let's go find Jim;
and you can ask him. I can't speak for him."

When they found me, Bob asked if I would
be willing to serve, and I casually said, "Of course I will." He sounded
more than a little concerned and, with some awkwardness, he finally got around
to asking, "But how will you do it?" At this church the deacons who
are serving gather at the back of the sanctuary and then walk two-by-two up
to the front of the church and up the steps to the altar. They take the trays
from the minister or elders and then go back down and serve the individual members
of the congregation row by row. When all have been served, the deacons return
to the altar to leave the trays and then walk again in pairs back to their seats.
I told him that I had not yet had the opportunity to think about it but that
there was a way. And there was, and I did!

On the first day I served, the church
was a-buzz. Later Bob said to me with real warmth and an obvious feeling of
pride, "You were more of an
inspiration here today than I was. I
actually saw people with tears in their eyes."

So it was that by Monday the story had
spread throughout the congregation, even to the shut-ins. It is true that the
activity seemed noteworthy in the beginning—even remarkable to some. But
the end of the story was the most gratifying for Sharon and me. For in a very
short time whatever I did (whether it was serving communion or serving as head
of the finance committee or serving as a trustee) was accepted as the ordinary
and unremarkable activity of a church leader. My blindness simply was no longer
an issue, and through the years Bob has become one of my best friends and a
true believer in the cause of the blind.

As I look back now, I'm glad that the
question of serving communion came up. Bob learned from it, the members of the
congregation learned from it, and my wife and I learned, too. We came to have
an even deeper understanding of the normality of the blind and the importance
of the work of the National Federation of the Blind.