communion

In Austin, Texas, Amy's Ice Cream is the local favorite for enjoying a good old-fashioned ice cream cone, boasting a selection of over 100 flavors. Naturally this was a designated stop in our carefully planned itinerary when we recently visited this city for the first time.

We had arrived at dusk and began our wait in the small line, anxious for a sampling of the local culinary favorite. Behind me was a boy of about 5 or 6 years-old with his father. "Look," the boy said to me as I glanced at him. He proudly held up a twenty-dollar bill that his father had obviously given him to enable the boy to conduct the entire transaction on his own. "Do you have one of these?" He asked me. I produced a twenty-dollar bill from my wallet. "Yes, I have one too!" I exclaimed as I held it out stretched between both hands in the very same prideful way he displayed his. It matched his in its crispness and pristine condition. Two Andrew Jacksons stared warily at each other. He leaned forward to carefully assess my bill. "Hey, I have an idea," I said as I knelt down to face him Mano-a-Mano. "why don't we trade?" He looked pensive for a moment weighing whether this was a good idea or not. He evidently decided it was an acceptable proposition. "OK!" he said nodding. He slowly wrapped his fingers around my bill, allowing me to do the same so we could execute the exchange simultaneously. As we both released our original bills, the boy's father laughed aloud. The boy and I smiled at each other with delight.

As we looked at our newly-acquired bills, we both recognized that something more significant than a mere transaction had just transpired. Monetarily, we had neither lost nor gained anything, but psychologically we had both benefitted. A communion had occurred. We had made a connection, symbolically offering ourselves to each other and accepting this "gift," this token of our commonality and humanity, celebrating the shared experience we had jointly created at that particular time and place . And then, just as quickly as it had happened, the moment passed, and we waved goodbye to each other, licking our ice cream cones as we parted.