A Difficult Read

Bob Carlton, who blogs at The Corner, has posted some reflections on his old parish, St. Matthias. St. Matthias is breaking up with the Episcopal Church, and Bob helpfully reminds us that children are often the people who get hurt the most in a divorce.

Bob writes:

"One of my biggest a-has has been that it is our faith, not my faith - that following God in a Jesus way is a communal thing more than it is a singular journey.

So my hurt from what one might think of as a very inconsequential change - the fact that St. Matthias Episcopal Church is likely breaking ties with an entity that seems to be at the very least denying death if not dying - well, that hurt is a lot more than just words changing on a sign. It is that a legacy that, in some ways, is tied up in a building and a community is being breached. A thin space that I still visit in my memories and in my soul is fracturing.

Our faith is being divided into mine and yours. I know this happened long ago, but something about this change has grabbed my soul by the collar (opps, bad metaphor) by the scruff of me neck. The rots of this faith run deep - just yanking them up is not actually possible. These roots are intertwined, connected to that tree over there and that bush yards away."

His first post on St. Matthias, "Love - and the church - sometimes hurts", can be found here.

The second, "Part of Why It Hurts", and from which I quote above, can be found here.

Check them out.