Wonderland 2024

H-1. And The Moral Of That Is

PROMPT ▼

The Duchess does seem to find a lot of morals in things, so tell us a non-fictional event that left you with a most important moral you’ll never forget. (<1000 words).

As it turns out, the event for this entry is the same as the last one: "G-2. Paint the White Roses Red" . Maybe it's just because it's top of mind recently, but the split in our church over the recent months was just such a stark reminder of how easy it is to lose sight of the fact that caring for other people is the most important thing you can do. It's easy to let other things - the survival of an organization, your own ego and preferences, making yourself the center of attention, etc. - take priority over that, but at the end of the day the thing that matters most is how well you care for others.

Throughout this church process, since I was a volunteer staff member and a very active member of the community and a close friend of multiple people involved in the issue, I had a whole lot of conversations with a whole lot of people about how they're doing, where they're at, filling them in on appropriate details of what happened, etc. And I was really amazed at how many people - good people, even - came to the table with opinions on what should be done based on their preferences, wants, desires, etc. Quite a few of them complained about how this process hurt them, and more than one in a way where an outside observer would probably assume from their level of grievance that they were one of the parties involved in the dispute.

There are also a lot of people who are confused about what to do. Should they follow the lead pastor wherever he goes next? Should they stay and help the associate pastor try to lead the church she's been left with? If their friends leave, do they go too? And, for me, this process has ended up being a fairly simple one where, if you're just focused on how to honor people and care for them as best you can in whatever circumstance they find themselves, it's pretty hard to go wrong with that approach. People matter; everything else is secondary.

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(349 words)