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Happily Ever After Includes Nitty Gritty Reality


Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you may have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you .(Colossians 3:13)

            "Churches provide an important incubator for civic skills, civic norms, and civic recruitment. Religiously active men and women learn to give speeches, run meetings, manage disagreements, and bear administrative responsibility." (Putnam, Robert D. , Bowling Alone,, p. 66, emphasis mine)

            Somewhere, in that part of our brains that believes in talking mice and knights in shining armor defeating fire-breathing dragons, we have this notion of "happily ever after." Sometimes, it sneaks out of Cinderella and settles down for tea with us and soon, it and reality begin to argue, very politely, of course. The venom is all in the subtext. We join in, not quite sure of what's being said, but convinced that "this isn't the way it's supposed to be."
      There's nowhere as likely to generate this feeling than a church. Christians aren't supposed to be the petty, sinful, disagreeable, stubborn people that we are. We're supposed to get along, love one another, be of the same mind, look good, behave better, and be practically perfect in every way. Then we run into a passage like today's. "...forgive whatever grievance you may have against one another"? Forgive? You mean Christians may have grievances? Legitimate grievances? (Of course, when the grievances are mine, I'm sure they're legitimate, but other Christians' grievances?)
         The reality is that we are in the process of becoming what we are supposed to be, so there are time when we will fall short. We need to learn how to deal with that. We need to learn how to handle our grievances, and those of other people. The church is a comparatively safe place to do that. Equally importantly, the Church is in the world to be a light that shows the world how to be. What use would it be if it was always  perfect and always harmonious? That would teach the world nothing about how to respond to grievances. The grievances we experience are actually a blessing to us, and through us to everyone else, even if we don't handle them well because they create teachable moments.

             

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