First Full Day!

We heard the phrase "set aside our differences" a number of times this morning. It's interesting to wonder if that is suppose to be "let's not argue about anything" or "let's not talk about anything we don't agree on!" It may be an attempt of leadership (??? and one wonders sometimes who that is!) to avoid discussion about hot topic issues. Of course, we don't name the hot topic issues. The bottom line is that a lot of people are using a lot of energy to keep us from fighting. That's good thing! But in that attempt, it's starting to feel like not fighting will translate to not even talking about the things we have fought about in the past. For those of you who know anything about family systems, you know how unhealthy it is to have an elephant in the living room and only talk about the weather, rather than what the elephant is doing in the living room. It's going to be very difficult to guess how all of this is going to turn out. The spirit in the "arena" feels good. The attitude seems to be one of grace. I think the desire to "set aside our differences" and get on with the mission and ministry of the church is good. But in doing the setting aside, we need to give voice to our differences, and grace to each other in having those differences. But in order to set aside differences, for me we must first remove language that divides and excludes a very dear and precious group of our membership, the LGBT community. I wanted to laugh out loud as delegates and visitors were singing together and dancing in the isles as we returned from lunch, "We Are Family" was the song! Maybe you remember the catchy tune from the 70's! It has become a signature song of the LGBT community. The irony of singing it at General Conference has to be credited to the Holy Spirit! And Mark Miller! We all continue to feel the presence of the RMC! The way you have been here today is amazing. Skip and Olon will represent that in their report. Be sure to watch the "Young People's Address" from this morning. Parts of it brought tears to my eyes. Be Well! Caorlyn Waters