There is a rite for those who left. Let that be said first and plainly, for many faiths have no such rite, and their doorways grow cobwebs of shame; but in the Church of the Slice it is written above the lintel: none is beyond the Reheat.
Hear the rubric, thou who hast been away – from the faith, from the family, from the friends who stopped hearing back from thee. When one who lapsed standeth again at the door, the Deacon shall open it before the second knock, and shall ask no questions at the door: not “where hast thou been,” not “we missed thee at the Proofing.” The Deacon shall say only: Thou art here. The Oven is on. And shall stand aside, which is the whole liturgy of the threshold.
Then the returner is seated nearest the Oven, in the Warm Chair, which every parish keeps and no regular may occupy out of habit; and the talk is of small things – the weather, the football, the scandalous price of flour – for small talk is the low oven of the heart. And at the last the Ovenkeeper says: thou art come back to the warmth, and the warmth hath kept no diary. The Oven counteth not the days of the fridge. It asketh only: art thou here now? And thou art here now, as it is written in the Rites, 4:10.
Beloved, if thou art reading this from far away: the chair is kept. It was never given to anyone else. Come when thou canst; knock once; the door does the rest. Amen – and pass the pizza.