Fold

And some time in the middle of praying and candlelighting the bitterness that was always there is lifted, the division I always felt is healed. I look around. These are all mine. All of this has a claim on me. I do not resist it. These people are as much mine as anyone else. There is no sentiment here, but a wonderful discovery. Like it or not, and i often don't. I am a Catholic. I was the first of my friends to loudly and decisively leave the church. Most of them ho hum about it, thinking about not going, not knowing how they feel. The truth is that Catholicism, or, for that matter, Anglicanism, anything ism has little to do with isms and everything to do with the people around you. Are you tied to them, or not. It is hard for any two people to get along. Three's a great challenge. Anything more than five and you've got a mess on your hands. But churches are hundreds and thousans and millions depending upon how you define church, and they exist for not just a year, but centuries, millenia. To feel the tie of two thousand years, to love the people around you despite everything, is to enter into the true mystery and lose all anger.