Well, what would you have titled this?

Because there is really one one fitting title for this piece about the little present I found recently at the communion table. And turd is the only word that works in that title. Because turd is a great word. When you drop turd into a sentence, it shouts its presence with a coarse, rolling resonance that sounds like a springy sound effect in some cheap comedy.

Boi-oi-oi-oing.

My wife and I joined two friends recently in leading a retreat at a lovely retreat center on the Frio River in the Hill Country of Texas. The retreat ended, and we four presided over a communion table to celebrate our final time of worship with the group. I was setting up the communion elements while people were filing into the room for the service. That’s when I noticed a mouse turd sitting right in the middle of the table.

At this point in the story, I’m afraid it’s going to become quite clear that I’m not a normal sort of person. Your average person would have hurriedly disposed of the turd, following this with a thorough cleaning of the table. I, on the other hand, ran to get my camera. I began snapping shots of the turd. Close, far, with the macro function, without, turning the camera this way and that.

“Okay, mouse turd, work the camera. Yes. Beautiful. Give me some attitude. Sweet!”

“Why, why, why?” you ask me, shaking your head in disbelief. “Why would you take a picture of a mouse turd on a communion table?”

I actually didn’t know at the time. I instinctively knew that this was a beautiful thing and a thing I would write about. I knew there was something important attracting me to this mouse turd. My policy in these situations is to take pictures first and ask questions later. And later I came up with the answer. I was attracted to the mouse turd because of it’s wonderfully earthy juxtaposition with communion, which is perhaps the holiest of moments in Christian worship. The whole thing reminded me of something I read about nativity scenes.

Ancient nativity scenes were not like the ones of today. Modern nativities usually contain nothing more than a stable with a few figures and animals gathered around the manger. Nativities from the 17th and 18th centuries in Spain and Europe often depicted the entire town of Bethlehem. The houses, the shopkeepers, the peasants, and the leaders of the town. The stable with the baby Jesus was only a small part of the whole.

And sometimes, squatting behind a door or hiding in some lonely corner of the nativity scene, you would find the Caganer.

The Caganer was a well-known figure. He wasn’t as important as the Christ child or the Magi, but he was important enough to have an official name. The Caganer was a boy or a man with his pants down, taking care of business. Yes, going to the bathroom. Taking a dump. Why mince words? There was a statue of a man squatting behind the holy stable, sometimes with a fresh pile on the ground below him. Will euphemisms somehow make this more palatable for you?

“Why, why, why?” you ask me, shaking your head in disbelief. “Why would they put such a thing in the nativity scene?”

I’ll tell you why. Because ancient people were not shy about earthy realities. Their religion was many things, but it wasn’t afraid of the body or ashamed of it. That shameful stuff started with Queen Victoria, but that’s another story for another day.

Spiritual leaders have long known that whenever we get too lofty, too spiritual, too separated from the body, God has other servants who bring us back down to earth. Children have a natural affinity for this kind of spiritual work. I was in a church service once when a little boy returned from the bathroom with his pants around his ankles and 6 feet of toilet paper sticking out of his bottom and trailing down the aisle like the devil’s own bridal train.

Sometimes God’s earthy servant is a person who simply will not be tamed. We once had a church member named Lyle, whose offenses against taste were so numerous and egregious that they cannot be listed here. For years I had to avoid making eye contact with Lyle during the sermon, lest he make some vulgar gesture that would cause me to laugh in the pulpit.

Lyle is not longer at our church, but I really miss him.

The forces behind these little church revolts are much like those behind real revolutions. When the government gets oppressive, the people revolt. If the revolution gets out of hand, a strong government rises to power. There’s an inevitable, “Ying and Yang” to it all. You can count on it; when church people get too spiritual for their own damn good, one of God’s other servants will bring us back to the body.

That’s why I didn’t flinch when I saw the mouse turd. I loved it. I’ve learned to watch for these earthy moments that pop up in the middle of all things holy and spiritual. They’re funny, and they are a good sign that we might be taking ourselves a little too seriously.

On the night before communion, all through the house, God’s children were sleeping, except for one mouse. After four days of prayers and singing and other religious hoo-ha, this little mouse - our own caganer - crept into the room and mounted the communion table. He lifted his fur and left us a little present.

“There you go, humans. That’s what I think of your religion, your cleanliness, your arrogance, and your pomp and circumstance. Here’s an element you weren’t expecting. Transubstantiate that, you bastards!”

I do not know the mind of God. I have no idea what God contemplates or what amuses God. But if God’s attention was drawn that night to our little mouse and his nefarious, after-hours activities, I bet God was smiling.

Heck, the whole thing might have been God’s idea.

rlp

Caganer from Wikipedia

Buy your own caganer.