The “Right Way” as Keel?;

Our Eternal Conundrum.

There is no doubt about it, many if not most of us find solace and comfort in knowing the “right way” to think, feel, believe, act, etc.  In an often confusing world, to know that you know what is right is a like the keel on a boat – it helps you to move straight ahead even in the midst of troubled waters.  Our religious beliefs can be like that for most of us.

But there is no doubt about it, many if not most of us have found that at some point or other in our life, as we seek actions that are clearly in the best interests of everybody, we bump into gatekeepers that tell us our plan is not “the right way”;  it’s not the way to do it here.   The religious beliefs of others can be like that at times for us.

Why is it that rather than open our ears, our minds and our hearts and really engage each other in honest and open conversations about the issues before us, those who know “the right way”, those who have counted on the keel of their religion to keep them upright and headed straight ahead, point to that which give them solace and comfort and then close their ears, their mind and their heart to alternative suggestions and approaches that might offer hope, support and help given the difficult issues before us.

The easiest way to cling to one’s own keel, is to simply not to acknowledge or reply to considerations, questions, and ways of thinking outside of one’s own religious and family traditions.  But this rigidity is a serious barrier to life-giving positive relationships in a congregation or across our larger church.  Weakened or destroyed are the very relationship connections that bring us all health and well-being.

We follow the nightly news and sorrow at the horrendous conflicts among people who have different beliefs about the right ways of thinking and believing in other countries.  Yet, in our own towns and congregations we allow similar differences to keep us apart and  muffle healing conversations. 

Why not redouble our efforts to use the power of open conversations -- easily available to us via The Lutheran Online or The Living Lutheran, for instance – to comment, to ask, to share, to know, to listen, to comfort, to sustain each other as together we as a church become part of the solution in our troubled world, not part of the problem.  

Bruce