My son and daughter’s favorite part of church is communion.

They can finally leave their seats at the back pew where my wife and I have been feeding them snacks, trying to bribe from them their patience. They stand. They walk down the center aisle. They smile at nearly every face they see and wave at many they know. As we approach the front, the pastor takes bread and places the pieces in their small hands.

“Do you know that Jesus loves you?” she asks.

And nearly every Sunday, as broken bread stands for broken bodies, I am struck with the words of James Baldwin, when he wrote that to be born black or a person of color in America means that you must “give up all hope of communion.”