The penchant for purity will kill the church

The penchant for purity will kill the church September 26, 2016

two soapy hands smI am watching from a distance as I see The United Methodist Church slowly disintegrate into irreconcilable factions led, kind of, by a group of paralyzed Bishops. At this point, they appear to be unable to even come to a consensus on who to put on a committee to address the issues nibbling away and destroying our connection.

The drive for purity, whether it be doctrinal purity or purity of total inclusiveness, is the core of the problem.

I observed with some amusement as the drive for purity started to play out in my personal life in a way that reflects the institutional disintegration.

It all started for me with a clogged sink.

About four weeks ago, I was recovering from a necessary cardiac procedure. After several days of post-procedure malaise, I began to see life dawn again. It was a Sunday. We had attended worship, and then came home considering how to honor the day as Sabbath. I had just written a newspaper column on Sabbath practice and wanted to live faithfully to my thoughts.

I was still moving with physical caution but sought  to do something healing both for myself and for our household, particularly as our home was showing signs of neglect during my recovery.

I washed my hands at the bathroom sink and thought, perhaps for the hundredth time, “I’ve got to do something about that sink. It drains too slowly.”

bathroom-sink-vanity-smI dawned on me: this could be my healing task. So I grabbed the baking soda and vinegar, two items I always keep on hand. I went to work. I pulled out the plug, removed the inevitable hair caught on it, and started my home-made treatment.

After about ten minutes of shoving the baking soda down and drenching it with vinegar followed by hot water, I heard a sudden “glug, glug” and then, voila! the sink began to drain freely.

This little task, satisfactorily completed, started a marathon of “Do it now!” I’ve cleaned closets and drawers, redone the flower beds to make the transition from summer to fall, re-potted numerous pots that badly needed it, cleaned out my email inbox, re-ordered several thousand electronic files so I could find things more easily, handled hundreds of small tasks I normally tend to put off.

I began to exercise again, discovering to my amazement that I felt better than I had in years and years. I cleansed my diet–nothing but healthy foods enter my system.

My husband and I are leaving town for a few weeks, so I have arranged for the papers and mail to be held or stopped, for someone to take care of the yard and plants, thought through all the things we might need for the trip and have everything ordered, neat, listed, ready to pack. We have a cleaning service and had decided to ask them to do a deep cleaning while we were gone since the normal cleaning would not be necessary.

I was in control, or so I thought


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