LIFE IS GOING TO BE DIFFICULT FOR A WHILE - APPARENTLY

I had an opportunity to visit some of the "dark side" blogs for reasons too convoluted to go into but it was an eye-opener!  I had not been to Standfirm for a little while and I try not o go to Virtueonline ever.  I like my news unadulterated and my blogs a little sassy but this last go around was a "cold water in the face" experience.

The discussion involved the ruling in Colorado.  Briefly, Judge Schwartz essentially returned the property of Grace and St. Stephen's Church back to the Episcopal Church.  The folks at the SF blog took just about everyone to task including the judge!  But what struck me was the tone and tenor of the discussion.   There was absolutely no room for forgiveness, reconciliation, repentance, or any other healing process.  Now, I really do understand the tendency to be hurt and to feel  threatened but at some point we are going to have to settle our differences.  For those who come back, with the property it makes those who remained with TEC fearful that "there is one more trick p your sleeve" which in turn will create further distrust and a tendency to "punish" rather than reconcile.  Neither of us can live like that -- not for very long.

For those who return without the property it makes those in TEC sense there is a "game afoot".  Doing the "Texas Twostep" again saps everyone's strength.  Here again, the tendency will be to exact retribution instead of reconciliation.  We need to be about mercy -- we need to be about forgiveness -- we need to be about truthful separation.  

The only thing I can think of that makes the folks at SF so angry is that they hate to see us go.  parting is such sweet sorrow and all that stuff.  The riddle for me is if they are so cocksure that TEC is way too far out and that so many of TEC are headed into the black hole and we are all a lost cause why do they speak so vehemently?  Why do they curse the ground upon which we walk? Whenever they speak of TEC they spit the words out like a bite of rotten apple.  There is no charity in what they say or do.  There is no finality to what they say or what they say we do.  In my day I have spoken with several "evangelists" who believe that if I do not change my ways I am headed to hell and yet they do not speak with the virulence that say a Matt Kennedy speaks or a Sarah Hey.  Growing up with 6 brothers and sisters I have had sibling fights that have ended better than this one.  

We need to realize that we have got to arrive at some ultimate end.  If we both keep hitting our heads against a brick wall all we will get is a bloody forehead.  There must be more too it than that.