Quote · The Moth
Cotton Candy and Revolutionary Rides: The Moth Radio Hour
Where this was said
Airport Communion and the Power of Sharing Failure
At 18:18 · chapter starts 16:40
At the pastors' conference in Chicago, Nadia's PowerPoint about her congregation is going over brilliantly — velvet Elvis, bicycle blessings, reformation day bake sales. Then she tells them about Rachel: a young queer woman who called her weeping from her parents' church, where she had been denied communion. Stuart didn't hesitate: 'We'll just have to take her communion to the airport when she gets home.' Ten people showed up at Denver International at 9 PM on a Tuesday with bread and wine and a chauffeur sign reading 'Rachel Pater, Child of God.' [1] — Nadia Bolz-Weber "A young queer woman in Nadia Bolz-Weber's congregation traveled to her parents' church and was barred from communion. Stuart, the church dr…" 16:40 The room cried. Then Nadia took a breath and told them the other story — the cotton candy machine, the 26 people, the bitch slap from the Holy Spirit, the resentment. The room fell silent, then transformed: at lunch, the pastors stopped treating her like an expert and shared their own failures. Nadia's final insight resonated through everything: 'I only feel less alone when people share their failings with me... those jagged edges create enough texture that it allows us to have something other people can hold on to.'
A young queer woman in Nadia Bolz-Weber's congregation traveled to her parents' church and was barred from communion. Stuart, the church drag queen, didn't skip a beat: 'We'll just have to take her communion to the airport when she gets home.' Ten people showed up at Denver International with bread, wine, and a chauffeur sign reading 'Rachel Pater, Child of God.'
After hearing that a young queer congregant was denied communion at her parents' church, 10 members of House for All Sinners and Saints showed up at Denver International Airport with bread and wine and a chauffeur sign.
At a pastors' conference, Nadia Bolz-Weber confessed her Rally Day breakdown — the bitch slap, the cotton candy, the resentment, all of it. The room stopped seeing her as an expert and started treating her like a colleague. Her conclusion: virtues dazzle, but jagged edges are what people can actually hold on to.
