Lois and Forgiveness
Saturday, January 13, 2007
Lois.
I have a friend named Lois. She knows how to love people. She and I had a mutual friend named Bosco. I had a big disagreement with Bosco and he left the church where I was rector and Lois and Bosco were members. Lois loves Bosco and stays friends and is close to him. She is also good friends with me and we have breakfast once a month whether we need to or not. Lois can love two people who do not like each other very much. She can hold in a dynamic tension two friends of widely different points of view. She is intensely loyal and supportive of both.
We live in a time where duality is the name of the game. People are seen as winners and losers, right or wrong, good or bad. That is the bad part of competition. But human beings are always a mixed bag of right and wrong, good and evil and so on. We tend to want to take sides and make people one side of the dichotomy or the other. Mature human beings are able, like Lois, see through the fake duality and see the good and bad in people, the winner and loser and love them just the same.
Those of us who are followers of Jesus, the revolutionary, are called upon to love our enemies, to love one another, forgive each other endlessly. It is hard to do, it takes constant work. However, it is our Christian vocation.
-RWC
Lois.
I have a friend named Lois. She knows how to love people. She and I had a mutual friend named Bosco. I had a big disagreement with Bosco and he left the church where I was rector and Lois and Bosco were members. Lois loves Bosco and stays friends and is close to him. She is also good friends with me and we have breakfast once a month whether we need to or not. Lois can love two people who do not like each other very much. She can hold in a dynamic tension two friends of widely different points of view. She is intensely loyal and supportive of both.
We live in a time where duality is the name of the game. People are seen as winners and losers, right or wrong, good or bad. That is the bad part of competition. But human beings are always a mixed bag of right and wrong, good and evil and so on. We tend to want to take sides and make people one side of the dichotomy or the other. Mature human beings are able, like Lois, see through the fake duality and see the good and bad in people, the winner and loser and love them just the same.
Those of us who are followers of Jesus, the revolutionary, are called upon to love our enemies, to love one another, forgive each other endlessly. It is hard to do, it takes constant work. However, it is our Christian vocation.
-RWC
posted by RWC | 9:48 AM
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