Reconciliation

At Council this past weekend, the Bishop spoke of putting aside differences and the importance of civil discourse. I was actually raised by the old adage one should never talk money, politics, or religion, but after all, discourse among parishioners, vestries, priests, bishops, parishes, and the diocese inevitably involve all three.

Our ability to reconcile is not only one of the most important skills we probably need at church, but also in life. And it takes so much practice, just for the smallest interaction with fellow human beings.

I just met the most amazing customer service person I think I’ve ever come across in my whole life. At one point I was ready to speak to her supervisor and the whole board of Sears if necessary, and the next she has me saying, “tell your supervisor you get a gold star today for dealing with irate customers.”

What was that? It got ugly and it could have gotten a whole lot uglier (remember the customer service lady was at a disadvantage already, you can’t tell a woman who has mounds of wet clothes on her back porch “no.”)

Just at the point when I said loudly “You’re being rude!”, something in her changed. She got a grip on the situation. She didn’t feed my anger, she kept her cool and began the slow progress of turning the situation around. I don’t know if the reconciliation happened when I apologized for losing my cool or simply by the fact that she had managed to dissipate my anger.

My question is, if we are capable (as I am) of losing our tempers over such insignificant things as dealing with useless, faceless customer service people on the phone, think about how much more practice it takes to keep a civil discourse when talking about things we really have opinions about—money, politics, and yes, religion. Despite my upbringing, I still think those are important things to discuss.

Money is important because it equals the well-being of others and good stewardship of resources. Politics are important, I guess because they do tie into our faith in terms of social justice—do we believe the death sentence is wrong, for instance? Do we believe that abortion is acceptable in the eyes of God? Do we condone violence against gay teenagers, to the point of a child being kicked and stomped to death while others looked on?

And finally religion. Our community of faith where we gather to learn to better love and respect God’s world and to love our neighbors better than ourselves. And in our community of faith, St. Dunstan’s, we are weekly granted reconciliation with God at the Eucharist. You’d think it’d be hard to forget.