I awoke this morning and got ready for my day, but it was a day that was different than most. This day I drove to the other side of Cleveland where I would gather with fifteen others for a team training workshop.
We were a group representing several Christian faith traditions, represented a range of ages as well, but united with some common sense of calling of engaging the needs of the worlds, in particular with this group the issues of hunger and poverty. Though I am sure some of us share together desires for engaging in other aspects of social justice as well. As we shared together in formal and informal ways, I found myself filled with joy and wonder. Being with a group with a desire to engage and seek needed change to help address the issues from local to global. I found as well as I looked back over it, how wonderful it was once more to be in that ecumenical setting engaging one another, sharing one another. Diversity is wonderful, one Catholic there that I share in a few small groups with expressed a similar joy of engaging this issue of hunger in an ecumenical level. I look forward to what this group might be able to accomplish as we move forward and figgure out what it is we will do.
It also brought to my mind the wonders and joys I had in seminary as I gathered around tables with people of various traditions and we shared and grew together. Ecumenical community is amazing. I think perhaps one way to sum it up is to say, each tradition has its gifts and talents, all of which are needed to truly be the body of Christ and engage the issues of the World, so let us celebrate our diversity and recognize our interconnectedness and work together and with other faiths to heal the broken world we live in.
Peace,
— Lyle II