Your sons and your daughters will prophesy...

A twenty year old woman spoke:

"We better know God's love
when we come to grips
with our own brokenness
and have compassion enough
to notice the brokenness of others."

Indeed our
sons and daughters
shall prophesy.

Her words
help make sense.

Living in a broken world,
serving in a broken church,
among broken people...
is really our blessing
designed to
more deeply experience
the
depth
and width
of God's love.

Yet we reject God's love
as we
deny our own brokenness...
close our eyes
to the brokenness of others...
and
worship that
which breaks us.

We of the Presbyterian flavor
broke apart in 1861
because of a thing
called the Civil War.
We stayed broken
as a body
for 122 years.

Finally in 1983 we re-united...
yet many refused to do so
because of a thing called
the ordination of women.

Now those of us who remain
in the short 27 years of reunion
are intent
yet again
to break apart.

It is impossible,
we say, for us to stay
together...

The fabric of our denomination
has been torn apart,
another proclaimed.

What is it we believe?
Have we forgotten?

Our chief end is to
glorify God
and enjoy God forever.
Westminster Catachism / Q.1.

God's sovereign love
is a mystery
beyond the reach
of our minds.
The Confession of 1967 / 9.15

With believers in every
time and place,
we rejoice that nothing
in life or death can seperate us
from the love of God
in Christ Jesus our Lord.
A Brief Statment of Faith /10.5

We say
we believe
these things
we say...

But
we remain
committed to the things
that seperate us...
all the while refusing
to sit with each other,
eat with each other,
pray with each other,
laugh with each other,
cry with each other,
listen to each other.

If we won't do these things
how can we
be so confident
in the things that
divide us?