Tags
being yourself, change, control, differences, express feelings, fear, forgiveness, higher power, inspire, Presbyterian Church, Quaker Meeting, shun, words
It feels as if I will be saying goodbye to my dear old friend, my church, today. Literally my religion is going somewhere else. While I have been spending the greater number of Sundays attending the Quaker Meeting in town, my still frequently-important-to-me but former Presbyterian church in town, is having a crisis. Today we vote on whether we should break from our roots and become aligned with the evangelists sect or not. If the vote is to become more evangelical, then many people, myself included, will move on. Our local society of friends, the Presbyterians of years collected, will disband in part because we disagree on how to best praise God, and who is allowed to do what in our midst.
Now across the street at the Quaker Meeting this would never happen. Quakers allow change, we are tolerant of differences, and we expect us all to share critical similarities simply because we are all humans engaged in the struggle of life the best we can. Our dissimilarities are appreciated for how they bring new awareness to one another, and ironically, the Quakers no longer shun those who are different.
So, I will step into the Presbyterian showdown this morning and cast my vote that we not disband because we disagree, but my expectations are low that any of this matters. To praise God, to love life, we have to accept what God has given us, and that is people who are different but fundamentally quite the same.
