Raw Reflections

I'm writing this while it is still raw.

We just returned from a funeral. We were not mourning the deceased. We'd only seen him a few times in the 40ish years since we were first introduced to him but we are close to members of his family.

We know a handful of the about one hundred people who attended the service. Two of the people we know are women who are obviously a couple though they are very discrete about it. So discrete, in fact, that the woman who was not a relative of the deceased attended but kept her distance from her companion during the day's activities.

This woman, I'll call her Ann, clearly was grieving. She herself knew the deceased well and was feeling her own grief and she was grieving for the woman she loves in her loss.

We entered the so called sanctuary early and were seated when Ann came tiptoeing in on the outside so as not to be noticed. Ann sat down on the far outside of a pew away from everyone else but only two pews up from the one we were in. When she sat down, I whisper-shouted ANN, someone leaned over and nudged her, she looked over, Evie and I waved her into our pew, she came over, Evie opened her arms offering a hug and Ann just melted. Quietly, but right there in the sanctuary, she melted down. She wept silently and hugged Evie desperately.

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There are a lot of things I don't know about the life of love that Jesus commands and about what it means to show mercy.

I don't always know what it looks to show love and to live a life of mercy but I do know some things about what it does not look like. As, I was watching Ann weep on Evie's shoulder and listening to Evie's tender words of comfort, my mind actually raced to thoughts of people in the church who think they are being faithful to Jesus simply by banning same sex couples from being married in their sanctuaries.

And, I became angry at those people.