When I was little I would watch the afternoon soaps with my mother. I continued to watch a couple of them after school well into my junior high school days. I remember one character who started junior high at the same time I did, but by the time I finished junior high, he had graduated from college. Children, it seems, do not make for good plot lines on soaps, unless they are the focus of a custody battle or paternity suit. Their time lines are sped up while those of adults are slowed down. This is particularly noticeable on the occasional sick day when there is nothing on afternoon television, but I need noise as I drowse. Or when I visit my brother's family, and my sister-in-law is catching up on her tapes of her favorite soap. Within the course of one episode, I find I have caught up on every character I once knew and learned almost as much about any new characters.
These thoughts came to mind this morning as I caught up on news, checked my favorite (and not-so-favorite) blogs, and generally re-entered the life in the Northeast after two weeks of meetings in the Dominican Republic. In less than an hour I was fully caught up with the latest in the Anglican brouhaha. A retired bishop leaves a "liberal" province for a more "conservative" one. Self proclaimed "orthodox" bishops cross provincial lines to "rescue" so called "orthodox" parishes and dioceses in "heretical" provinces. Lawsuits. Posturing. Nasty comments. Witch hunts. Threats. From both sides of the aisle, so to speak. In other words, nothing new has happened. Not that I really expected it to, but the the sameness of it all truly reminded me of the soap operas.
This may be in part because most of my two weeks were spent with writers, lay and clergy, from the dioceses of Province IX of the Episcopal Church. In spite of cultural, language (think British English vs. U.S. English and multiply by eight or nine), and theological differences, these writers came together, formed a community, and began producing a Spanish language curriculum for Province IX. We talked together, worshipped together, worked together, ate together, and even played together. And yes, we argued together. Passionately. We argued over things seemingly as small as the meaning of a single word to things seemingly as large as the meaning of what it means to be a church. Sometimes we came to agreement. Sometimes we did not. No one stalked off because they disagreed with the outcome of these discussions. No one stopped talking to anyone else. No one went off to write their own curriculum. And no one removed themselves from the community. Always we remained a loving, caring community.
So coming back to the ongoing series of snit fits that seem to dominate the blogs and the news has been a little jarring. Having experienced, even for a brief moment in time, a caring community that did not require uniformity to belong, that respected its own diversity, the mean spiritedness and the calls for separation and "purity" are difficult to process.
Much to mull over in the coming days, weeks, months, and years.
Peace,
Jeffri
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