All's Sweetness And Light

It is, in effect, nothing more than a family feud. The family is that all-encompassing religion, Christianity, and the argument is between the mother and her restless, complaining daughters bringing disharmony to the family. All members of whom believe in God, but each of them believing they must approach God in a very particular manner. Each of whom declares their belief that theirs is the only approach that God, indeed, approves of.

Catholicism or Protestantism, and all the large and small, credible and incredible divisions within the two. Poaching takes place shamelessly, truth to tell. And conversions from one to the other, where those having converted become more strict than the Pope himself.

Well, that's human nature for you. We all think we're somehow more credible, important, entitled than the others who present as candidates for scorn because they too feel they're more credible, important, and entitled. And someone has got to be right, and it cannot possibly be the other one, the breakaway, the erratic and the ecstatic, the errant and the eccentric.

Now isn't that right?

On the other hand, there comes a time when surely reason should prevail. Even though reason plays no role in a system of beliefs in the Divine, for faith in and of itself is divorced from reason, existing in its own right as a spiritual quest which requires no answers, just assurances. Faith is a thing of the viscera, reason resides within the brain.

It is very nice and civil and charming and about time that the Shepherd of the Holy Roman Catholic Church made overtures to the Anglican Church of England, appearing for the very first time at that wonderful piece of architectural adventure, the venerable, estimable Westminster Abbey. And the Archbishop of Canterbury may now be inspired to visit Vatican City.

Let love and brotherhood bloom.