VirtuallyFaithful here!  Are you following General Convention?  You should.  But not too closely.

It’s like watching a waterfall — powerful and inspiring, but get too close and it’ll knock you over.  You also don’t want to pay too much attention to all the droplets slashing out on the rocks.  Go downstream a bit.  Watch the water flow.  Sometimes the stream itself will shift a little.  Most times it doesn’t, because the total force of the stream is far bigger and more important than any few hundred or even thousand gallons that get dumped in all at once.

When light shines on all those exquisite drops, rainbows appear, as is right.  But the rainbows aren’t to be confused with the waterfall, or the stream that drives it.  No stream, no waterfall.  No waterfall, no rainbows.  So don’t just look at the rainbows alone.  But do notice them.  They are, after all, one of God’s favorite signs of unbreakable covenant with us all.

Listen to the water. God speaks through the mystery of that sound. It’s a different voice than you hear in Washington Weekly or on talk-radio, or even online in blog posts like this.  It’s more subtle.  Less in your face and pugnacious (there’s a word for you!).  God’s like that.  Really faithful to us.  While we’re virtually faithful, at best, in return.  That’s what it is to be the church.  So watch and listen, but more to God than to General Convention.  But since we’re the Episcopal Church, watch and listen to what’s going on there, too.  God may even choose to speak from the maelstrom, again.