This picture has hung on my fridge for the last semester as a reminder that in the midst of all the study, prayer and work for peace, peace must begin with individuals. This soldier makes a decision every day to fire his gun or not. We all wake with the decision to engage in violence or embrace the love and peace that Christ offers. Keeping in mind the words of Desmond Tutu "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor", we will realize that our own complacency is in fact a finger on the trigger, perpetuating the cycle of violence. It is with these things in mind that I have finished my first year in seminary.
There are so many aspects of brokenness within this manifestation of the body of Christ, The Episcopal Church. The words that are loosely attributed to St. Augustine "The church is a whore, but she is my mother" captures the sentiments that colored my year; as I am falling deeply in love with the church I begin to despise our shortcomings, inconsistencies and contradictions. But a stance of discontent and judgment is antithetical to the very gift of Christ which is the very love needed to overcome the gaps between what we perceive we should be, and what we actually are. So it has been my challenge to not despise the whore, but love the mother that is the church and live into the peace of Christ.
Augustine's identification of church as mother has rung true more recently for me, as I have been made a postulant for holy orders. Postulancy has left me asking myself why, as someone who values their freedom and has been trained in Peter Bigfoot's "school of self reliance", would choose to be under orders from church hierarchy? Well there are many reasons, above all is the fact that the church is my mother and I ultimately trust that God moves and works through her even when I don't agree with her. Self reliance is an illusion; to live into the peace which Christ offers we need one another and the gathering of the church.
It will be with these things in mind that I travel through Israel/Palestine with friends of Sabeel; the gift of Christ is not judgment, hatred or distance, but love and the church is one place that attempts to allow this love to flow, yet find ourselves 'whores' to much of the world.
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