Moving home – again

My family recently moved back to our home that we left a few years ago while I took a position with the U.S. Army Reserve at lovely Camp Shelby, Mississippi. We kept our house here so the move back was less painful. However, I’ve felt a lot like the fairy take character, Rip Van Winkle, who went to sleep and woke up a hundred years later.

Four years later – things were different.

Imagine that!

Oh, I kept up with our church news via email; someone got sick, a couple got married, someone died, someone divorced.

Life went on.

But it’s different to receive these new items from afar as opposed to being here and seeing the tears.

I was in Wal-Mart the other day and saw a woman I knew from church.

I hadn’t seen her in several years. But I knew some of what had happened. I am fairly sure she saw us, but she did not speak and I am also pretty sure she didn’t want to talk with us.

The marriage between her and her husband was one of those casualties that happened while we were gone. I’m sure she recognized us, despite our absence from the community; she just didn’t want to engage.

I don’t blame her.

I don’t know what happened to them, but I can be sure that there are many sides to the story. I know the husband better, but haven’t even asked him what happened.

What do you do with division when it happens in marriages, friendships, or churches?

I wish that I’d engaged her; that I had said hello (at least) and that I was glad to see her. Sure, it would have been uncomfortable, so what?

Sometimes people are discarded when they leave our social group.

The thing is, she is still here in the community living her life, the guy is still here, their kids are still here. They all have to interact at some level.

Wouldn’t it be better to engage and try to love rather than ignore and discard?

On a larger view: A few years ago a guy named Joe Beam wrote an article about what was happening within the church (of Christ). You can read it at: http://www.gracecentered.com/what_is_happening_to_churches_of_Christ.htm

He details his view of the division and the driving forces behind the divisions. I enjoyed the article and wondered just where I fall in the spectrum.

I also ran across a youtube video of a preacher named Rick Atchley (see above). The video is short and I think was taken from a larger sermon. The youtube video is called “Chairs” for obvious reasons if you see the video.

He kind of does the same thing as Joe did with his article, but in a more visually pleasing way.

But it wasn’t pleasing – it was painful.

Because division is always painful. Rick does such a good job demonstrating the foolishness of our constant and silly disagreements.

I’m sure no one in my religious tribe would disagree with what he said in the video.

Good thing that we don’t discard anyone from our religious groups when disagreements occur.