Aftermath (Or: Sausages and the Canonical Laws)

"So, what did you think?" said about everyone who I'd talked to at all this weekend. Our rector had a somewhat different question. "How has this changed the way you think about religion?" (Paraphrased. I don't remember his exact wording.)

I'm trying, still, to sort that out. While listening to a presentation about - some international relief fund, anyway - I found an answer to a question surfacing. The question, never quite verbalized, but lurking semi-permanently under the mental surface for several hours, went something like: "But what is the point of all this administrative stuff?"

It's really hard, as an individual, to have a good answer to "What have you done, today, to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the prisoners, comfort the sick, the lonely, the widows and poor..." As a body, we have a far much better... a... well, we have the avenues to answer that question, anyway. I don't know that it's ever "enough." But it's a hell of a lot better than trying, and failing, to do it alone.

At the same time, though... a lot of talk about organization, development, and mammon, and not so much talk about Love? I'm torn. On the one hand, "feed the hungry" is pretty damn important. Yes, I think, more important than "make sure the hungry also convert to Episcopalians." Or even Christians. That's a - a thing a lot of more hard-line evangelicals do that drives me crazy. "We'll feed them, but only if they agree with our doctrines [out loud]."

But... there's a weird undercurrent in some of the conversations about "bringing in the Sstrangers" that seems to go back to the same flipping numbers game! Bring people in, get them into the church, and add them to the tally - even if they don't actually agree with or understand or care about what's going on in the service. Presto! Better numbers - look, the church isn't dying, isn't struggling, attendance is up! Bah.

So I guess I'm with our rector on that one. Social justice is awesome. It's necessary. It's something we absolutely should be doing. But it cannot be empty of the gospel. We should still be looking for Love in that effort. Love must be the center of our missions, of our outreach, of our works, or what the hell is the point? Likewise, sitting around staring at our navels and contemplating theoretical love without ever doing anything about it isn't much better. Gah, I don't know. Like everything else, it's a paradox and a balance and the Episcopal Church seems to be looking, always, for that balance, rather than just shrugging and letting it go. Which is the important part.

And I'm sitting up [or I was last night, when I wrote this out], having gotten out of the newsroom at a reasonable hour, turning this over on paper with the hope that ink will make it make sense, as neurons tend not to. I do know that this doesn't change my belief that I am in the right place here, at the Episcopal Church. Solidifies it, to some extent. Yes, it's an organization that is made up of flawed, broken humans, and therefore--
but maybe that's why we have so many prayers asking God to look favorably on the Church, and the church.

And I am coming to believe that schism really is a greater sin than heresy. That it is far, far better to stand in the company of a people willing to strive for love together, in all our broken flawed selves, than to seek love alone-- how can we see God if we do not look with and in each other?