Barefoot Communion

                                The sky was black. The night was windless, starless, and Jazeera had to light a candle to ward off the darkness that gnawed at her heart. Night had come quickly, but sleep refused to. She sat on her bed in her dressing gown, black hair falling loose over her shoulders, and a voice—oh, that voice—meandering through every thought in her mind.             Come to me.             Jazeera clutched at her head in agony. The voice, menacing and deep, had haunted her at every setting of the sun. The young woman had spent many nights standing at her bedroom window, staring down the ball of sun until it sank into the earth. At the last wisp of light, the voice would bite into her head.             Come to me....

"Why are you in your feet?" I was sitting in the very back row of church- not the back row, the VERY back row. The one pushed against the wall. The row for those of us who only wish to be seen by God that day. I was hunched over, picking up my purse, Bible, and empty plastic communion cup when I was seen. I looked up, and my pastor's young son was before me, staring quizzically at my "naked" feet.  I smiled. I don't mind being seen by children. Reaching for my shoes which were far under my seat, I answered his curiosity. "I feel closer to God when I'm in my feet." The child accepted this, as if it made perfect sense, and scampered off to play with his friends. Shoes have always been distasteful to me. Shoes are a barrier, and barriers are an abomination. While I acknowledge that some barriers, both physical and intangible, exist for protection, I recoil from barriers that separate me from that for which I am reaching.  I am always reach...