The Believers' Common Cross
Andrew Sullivan is gay, he's also an observant Catholic. I find these words, especially the last paragraph, to be poignant, and maybe even familiar for many in the LDS Church -- or any church. The common cross of staying faithful to a Church that has tenets with which your moral compass does not agree.
Quote:
I do find it increasingly hard to attend mass after campaigns as in Maine that feel like an assault on my soul and others'; and a sense of exile - spiritually and psychologically - has marked my faith life since the sex abuse scandal broke.
Maybe I am too weak to leave and be done with it. But in my prayer life, I detect no vocation to do so. In fact, in so far as I can glean a vocation, it is to stay and bear witness, to be a thorn in the side, even if the thorn turns inward so often, and hurts and wounds me too.
I stay because I believe. And I stay because I hope. What I find hard is the third essential part: to love. So I stay away when the anger eclipses that. But the love for this church remains through the anger and despair: the goodness of so many in it, the truth of its sacraments, the knowledge that nothing is perfect and nothing is improved if you are not there to help it.
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http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.co...he-castro.html
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"Now I say that I know the meaning of my life: 'To live for God, for my soul.' And this meaning, in spite of its clearness, is mysterious and marvelous. Such is the meaning of all existence." Levin, Anna Karenina, Part 8, Chapter 12
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