The church is not a place where perfect people gather to say perfect things, or have perfect thoughts, or have perfect feelings. The church is a place where imperfect people gather to provide encouragement, support, and service to each other as we press on in our journey to our Heavenly Father.
“What characterizes the human race more,” Karla once asked me, “cruelty, or the capacity to feel shame for it?” I thought the question acutely clever then, when I first heard it, but I’m lonelier and wiser now, and I know it isn’t cruelty or shame that characterizes the human race. It’s forgiveness that makes us what we are. Without forgiveness, our species would’ve annihilated itself in endless retributions. Without forgiveness, there would be no history. Without that hope, there would be no art, for every work of art is in some way an act of forgiveness. Without that dream, there would be no love, for every act of love is in some way a promise to forgive. We live on because we can love, and we love because we can forgive.