These last few days have been particularly difficult ones. I’ve written about one of the sources in the last couple posts. The other is that my mom’s life is quickly fading away. She may only have a few hours left. I’m in Petersburg; she’s in Tokyo. There is no way to get from here to there in less than two days. All I can do is sit here and wait.
When church members need to just talk and have someone listen, they go to their pastor. So where is a pastor to go? In my case I turn to the other pastors in town. In particular the two that I feel closest to are the Presbyterian pastor and the Catholic priest. I spent about an hour with the former this morning, and spoke with both over the phone later this evening.
I think this illustrates what I wrote in the previous post about Christian priorities. Genuine Christianity is revealed not by statements of belief, by creeds, by having a bigger and better organization, or a detailed church manual. It’s about positive interactions and relationships between individuals. It’s about getting to know and trust individuals. It’s about holding in common Jesus Christ and letting everything else fall to the periphery. It’s about living what John wrote about in his First Epistle (1 John).
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