The Ministry of Pint Glasses

The best beer I've ever had was at a monastery. If you grew up in a church like the one I grew up in, this might come as a surprise.

My old high school youth group used to host a chili cook-off every year, and once my dad entered his chili in the contest. Now, sometimes he would excitedly pour a whole bottle of beer into the slow cooker. And smirk. This is when I knew the chili would be good. In fact, once I was old enough to actually drink my first beer, the experience was fun but underwhelming; to me, it just tasted like chili.

But back to the chili cook-off. That year, Dad entered his beer chili, but put nothing about beer in his description, because alcohol was absolutely taboo at this church. In thirteen years there, I never heard anyone talk about alcohol. Except once. When my youth pastor tried my dad's chili (I vividly remember standing behind him in line, clutching my own plastic spoon in anticipation), he immediately shot back, relieved, "There's beer in here! I mean...this is good." And then just as immediately, he shut down the chance for my dad to respond, and we never talked about it again.

I'm not exaggerating when I say this experience haunted me for years, but I couldn't figure out why until I was a lonely, grieving adult, hundreds of miles from home, sitting across the table from a row of monks I'd only met last night. And then someone offered me a beer. We'd just had liturgy for Annunciation, and it was time to celebrate. What I had mis-learned from the chili cook-off was that there were parts of our lives separate from the Church. My youth pastor had obviously liked the taste of beer, but couldn't bring that part of him into church, and he couldn't let the Church reach him there or teach him how to enjoy a beer in faith.

Compare this to last Saturday's 18th Annual Feast of St. Patrick, when I was behind the bar handing out drinks left and right in pint glasses stamped with saints and heroes of Christianity. We drank together, but we also laughed together, spoke openly, drew nearer to each other over a pint.

Of all the Cloud of Witnesses pint glasses Eighth Day Institute has made over the years, the most controversial is the glass with St. Mary of Egypt, arguably the most famous ascetic of Eastern Orthodoxy. Should she be associated with a foamy pour of Guinness? Probably not. But at the same time, as I was serving our guests, I overheard a conversation between sips I never would have heard at the chili cook-off. Someone asked a friend to tell her about the woman on his glass, St. Mary of Egypt. "I mean, she was a real harlot, like really, but then..." I heard the consolation in his voice retelling St. Mary's profound repentance, and I watched them both soften by her story. I was watching two people have an encounter of faith.

Cheers to growing closer together over a pint or a glass of wine. Cheers to finding ourselves in the stories of the saints. And cheers to letting the Church reach us wherever we are.​​​​​​​