P.S., HH
I know it is difficult to separate the “Church” from the miserable rotten sinners IN the Church (
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But think for a moment, no offense, how can we possibly expect everybody else in the church to be perfect, when you and I are in it?
I don’t know about you, but I am a fairly miserable, nasty, selfish, proud, opinionated, tight-fisted, lazy, feckless slob. . .and that’s on my GOOD days.
Why then would I be rocked by the idea that other people in the church are likewise often miserable, nasty, selfish, etc.? The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints. And I use the hospital analogy advisedly, because a hospital ideally helps sick people to get WELL. . .but, sadly, some people do not get well.
Now, I’m not saying, “everybody else is a jerk, I don’t have to be any different”. I’m not saying, “just live with the failures”.
Humility is THE hardest thing for me. My brother used to have a little plaque which said, “It’s hard to be humble when you’re as great as I am”. . .it could have been mine. Boy, could I point out the faults of others, but even when I would speak with my lips, “Lord, I am not worthy”, I sure didn’t speak it in my heart. In my heart I would think, “With all the mess people are making around here, Lord, isn’t it a good thing you have ME?”
Until I was brought up short (long story) to where I actually for one brief moment did experience humility.
Now, I am still miserable, etc. as above. . .but now I really KNOW it. It has made me, while still zealous for the faith, and hopefully more attuned to God’s will instead of mine, be just a little more patient about others (although sometimes it takes me longer than it should) and a little harder on myself.
The other thing it did was cure me of my religious indifference, so to speak. I was really gung ho on how everything was all relative, and it didn’t matter about petty things. . .to the point where I could have “worshipped” anywhere from a Buddhist temple to a Baptist church, and bleated about the “universality of the God/Goddess/Unity Figure”, taking out bits and pieces from each and building some little “personal” faith which grabbed the gospel music from the Baptists, the cooking of the Shakers, the minimalism of the Buddists, the sacramentals of Catholicism, the service of the Quakers, etc. etc.
You see, with the idea that “everything is up to the individual”. . .you wind up with chaos, because sooner or later you have two people with completely different views who both profess to be Christians, and then what? They can’t both be right, of course. But oh horrors, how we hate to criticize people and stomp their self esteem, and who are WE to make judgments over whether something is “better” than something else?". . .see the problem? That is what we have today, a church where “anything goes” except the so-called moldy attitude that there is any such thing as absolute truth. A church where we are told that postures do not “matter”. . .unless we are part of the minority which chooses a different posture (and that means both ways, either those who don’t hold hands in holding land, or those who DO hold hands in don’ttouchme land). Hmm, first I am told the posture does not matter, but only the intent. . .but dig those glares from the same person who is ostentatiously “embracing in love” the brothers and sisters in the pew to the brother or sister who is not comfortable with the gesture!!
The gesture DOES matter. (And for the record, WHATEVER the gesture is, just for God’s sake make it UNIVERSAL. We are supposed to be united as Christians, not divided into dozens of camps of “I don’t hold hands”, “I don’t orans”, “I DO hold hands”, “I do orans”, “I believe in the real presence”, “It’s a symbol”, “women priests”, “men priests”, “latin”, “vernacular”, “faith community”, parish". . . ad infinitum.)
God bless. . .and bring us together. For sure we’re not going to be uniting our Protestant brothers and sisters until we’re a unified family OURSELVES!
