Getting Along

These are difficult times politically and socially.  Our spirits can be weighed down, and differences long rooted in our personal culture and upbringing may threaten relationships.  Even Jesus had to get a message from a Canaanite woman that expanded his view of God’s love.  What can we do as a church and as individuals to help bring people together without violence, in the search for commonality?  Often the simplest-sounding things are the most difficult – and the most effective.  We can talk.  And we can listen.  Getting along requires willingness to permit oneself to be changed (even Jesus!).  This does not necessarily mean losing your opinion, but changing the degree to which you are willing to hear another person, however hard it is, without shutting them down.  We are changed when we can hear their story.  It’s true that some things feel impossible to hear, much less forgive.  We are not perfect.  Intentional love is a life-long project and we are still going to harbor the desire to tell someone off, or give them a swift kick.  We may be angry or scared.  Or walk away.  But there is no limit to the power of pre-emptive love to unmake violence and remake the world.  Love is not finite.  There is always more.  Choose, wherever possible, to see beyond labels because we are more than that, and we need more than that.  Even in what seem to be the worst of circumstances….  ““People, I just want to say, you know, can we all get along? Can we get along? Can we stop making it horrible?…It’s just not right. … It’s not going to change anything.  Please, we can get along here. We all can get along. I mean, we’re all stuck here for a while. Let’s try to work it out….”( Rodney King, 5/1/1992)  Yes, we’re all stuck here for a while.  Let’s try to work it out.   May peace and the courage to love be with us all —

              Pastor Carol

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