Poet Robert Frost was remembered into eternity for having a quarrel with the world, but even more, for loving the world. God grant that we too might be remembered, not so much for the inevitable quarrels, but for our love for the church… for Christ’s church.
A Quaker philosopher at the Earlham School of Religion instilled in me a principle which has stayed with me throughout my life, and which ceaselessly inspires my thinking about world and individual events. He taught: “Always favor the oppressed, and if the oppressed become freed from oppression and become the oppressors, favor the new oppressed.”
Those of us who have tried to give our all to Christ and to Christ’s church face a conundrum as to how we should encounter our brothers and sisters (and our children and grandchildren) who are spiritual but not religious. Let us be like the parents of Emily Dickinson, who affirmed her, embraced her, and welcomed her at the table.
“As we gather at God’s holy table, the table is not our table, not the church’s table, not the denomination’s table, but it is God’s table, and God’s inclusive hands extend a welcome to all.”
I return again and again to the power of ever-so-brief children’s sermons. They cannot eradicate generations of racism, hatred, and narrow-mindedness, but inch by inch they can influence attitudes and values for good.