The priest is standing by the alter. She takes the plate with the bread, making the act visible to the congregation. Words are accompanying the bodily movement and vice versa:
”I den natt då han blev förrådd,
tog han ett bröd,
tackade,
gav åt lärjungarna, och sa:
tag och ät…”
All what is appearing to the eyes and ears of the congregation can be seen, heard, and sensed. We know the taste of bread in our mouths. We hear the voice. We see the act happening in front of us. All is connected and we are all embedded in the situation, in the spacetime of the event.
Seated in the church I am entangled within the situation. As a Christian I am prepared to respond to the sacred act – the holy communion - shared by many Christians before me since more than 2000 years. As a scholar and researcher aiming to understand what and how performative theology may be performed, I observe this sacred act critically. I am two beings in one: one part of me is confessional, the other is aiming to be objective and analytical. There is a physical dilemma in this situation, namely the ‘shared body’ being part of ‘both sides of me as a human being’. Even if I aim at dividing my thinking from my physical presence it is in the end impossible to split myself in two becoming fully objective. Every thought is accompanied by the body, as well as my body being entangled with my thinking mind.
Performative theology involves a critical way of learning about divinity by applying the self as more-than-thinking, meaning the whole body including all aspects of living through and being part of a situation. The current situation begins right here and now; in the lived and entangled experience of being critically involved and consciously alert while separation and unification happens as one assembling movement. In a similar way the performative act in front of my eyes becomes like a symbol of my own experience -of being both broken in two while also unified as one being - when the priest embodies the breaking of the bread while at the same time uniting the two halves just broken apart into one.
”…Gör detta till en påminnelse”
I ask myself, what happens to my critical judgement in the performative act? An analysis of Self is consciously being embodied within. Every word and movement creates an awareness inside me while I actively respond to the situation around me. I get a feeling of walking through a crowded corridor with doors opening one after another. Step bby step- What is coming forth through each door is yet another landscape of wonders. Worlds of unknown acts and materialisations. Forever and ever.