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Apr. 24th, 2005 04:18 pmI learned an important lesson this weekend. Never be LEM when you've killed your arms the day before.
For those of you who don't know, an LEM [Lay Eucharistic Minister] is the person in the Episcopal liturgy who reads one of the two Bible lessons before the Gospel lesson, and who carries the Chalice to give people wine during Communion. I've been one for three years now. It's an interesting thing to do. You tote around this silver chalice brimfull with wine and hold it for people. They either grab it and sip out of it [which I like, because it's easier on me] or they wait for you to bring it to their lips [which I hate, because it makes it much much harder, and your arm wobbles as you try to tip the cup back just enough that they can sip at the wine, but not so much that a whole bunch sloshes down their throats].
I worked a lot this weekend, mostly involving things that needed a lot of arm work. When I woke up this morning, I could barely lift my arms above my head. If I kept them in front of me too long, they shook. Shaky weak achey arms are the perfect thing to have when toting a ginormous chalice. Yes. Obviously.
So I'm standing in front of a lady with a beautiful pale green outfit, just gorgeous, and I can see myself spilling the wine all over her.
Luckily I didn't. But I did nearly choke a friend of my parents by accidentally giving them too much wine, and I did get into a frantic whispered conversation with the other LEM across two priests, so it wasn't a total bust. At least no babies spit up on me this time around.
For those of you who don't know, an LEM [Lay Eucharistic Minister] is the person in the Episcopal liturgy who reads one of the two Bible lessons before the Gospel lesson, and who carries the Chalice to give people wine during Communion. I've been one for three years now. It's an interesting thing to do. You tote around this silver chalice brimfull with wine and hold it for people. They either grab it and sip out of it [which I like, because it's easier on me] or they wait for you to bring it to their lips [which I hate, because it makes it much much harder, and your arm wobbles as you try to tip the cup back just enough that they can sip at the wine, but not so much that a whole bunch sloshes down their throats].
I worked a lot this weekend, mostly involving things that needed a lot of arm work. When I woke up this morning, I could barely lift my arms above my head. If I kept them in front of me too long, they shook. Shaky weak achey arms are the perfect thing to have when toting a ginormous chalice. Yes. Obviously.
So I'm standing in front of a lady with a beautiful pale green outfit, just gorgeous, and I can see myself spilling the wine all over her.
Luckily I didn't. But I did nearly choke a friend of my parents by accidentally giving them too much wine, and I did get into a frantic whispered conversation with the other LEM across two priests, so it wasn't a total bust. At least no babies spit up on me this time around.
