Listening, Trusting, Learning

Re Do We Trust God? July/August

As a retired editor of the Glad Tidings magazine of the Women’s Missionary Society for 24 years, I am pleasantly surprised to read the words of David Harris in the July/August issue. That this will be a year of “holy listening” for the PCC before General Assembly 2016 is most gratifying.

As editor I once put out an issue that was supposed to be about human sexuality. The material received leaned more towards homosexuality. There was an enormous backlash from readers, mostly negative and the Glad Tidings received more mail than ever before or since.

When I look back now I did a lot of “holy listening” that year. Perhaps my reflections will help others facing this task.

When I listen I hear the confusion and sorrow in a young woman’s voice. Her fiancé had just committed suicide because he was gay.

I hear the outpouring of love in a mother’s voice and her joy that there is a Presbyterian church where her son feels accepted.

I hear the sound of love in the cooing of a lesbian couple over their first child. They are ministering in the PCC.

I hear myself criticized for focusing too much on homosexuality. Where were the “heterosexuals” when their voices were needed?

I have been condemned for not “listening” to the voice of God through scripture. It may just be that I am reading other passages where Jesus met with the marginalized and was friend to all.

I pray that God will help open my eyes and my ears to the struggle of God’s church and that I may hear anew the voices of God’s people as they listen and respond to that which God is calling us as the Presbyterian Church in Canada. We should all, as David Harris says, strive to answer the question, “Do we trust God?”