"She has loved much, for she is forgiven much"

There's nothing more instinctive in a being designed for altruism than judging. If you think about it, evolution nearly demands it - how can you be a community of intelligent beings who share the life of your community if you don't have:

- a means of distributing the work as evenly as possible;
- a means of ensuring social order, through customs, laws and punishments (for their breach)?

I suppose in this, I regard Jesus as the next evolutionary step: the step beyond a human way of creating order, to the divine way, which consists of:

- The labourers all receive the same wage, no matter how long or hard they toil;
- Forgive everyone

There was a saying in the feminist circles of the sixties - the personal is political. I consider that a very important truth, but it is only half of the truth, for I would also assert that the communal is political. There are times, to coin Captain Kirk, when the needs of the few, or the one, outweigh the needs of the many. And there are times when the reverse is true, as Mr. Spock originally proposed.

I can't say I've ever been a blindly obedient Christian, believing as my bishop tells me just because he tells me. I have to come to believe what I believe for myself, via the exercise and formation of my conscience. (Even then, I must confess, I don't always obey my conscience, but that is the sad awareness any Christian has, I suspect.) I've wrestled with the great ethical questions that have come to the fore, some with more difficulty than others.

On the question of life, when it begins, and what reproductive choice means, I have not had the luxury of simply listening to church men. In my life, I've known people with harrowing stories of decisions they've come to, experiences they've had, each adding a new layer of meaning to my quest to understand what I can never truly know - what is it to become a mother? I know a woman grateful to be alive for she is the result of a rape. I know another woman who wept herself to sleep at night because a likely congenital defect in her child caused her to make a decision that she told me was in no way an easy one. All of my inquiry did lead me to fall into the Pro-Life camp. But I realized I could do this without judging anyone, without finding fault, without accusing anyone of moral laxity, or wishing for their prompt jailing. I could do this and hear what the other side had to say and know that much of what they have to say (for example, the accusation that pro-lifers lose interest in babies once born) is an accusation that is not unfair.

On the other hand, in the latest debate, gay marriage, I found the personal overriding the communal. I did fret (validly I think) that the changes here in Canada no longer place the one naturally generational institution without a state of exaltation or primacy - a fertility rite no longer about fertility. But then I thought about the many gay friends I've had - who did they most resemble? And I was forced to admit, they most resemble me. Those in their twenties went through the same heartbreak, ecstasy, and more heartbreak that love in the twenties is for anyone. Those in their thirties and forties worry about the same things I do - how to get from paycheque to paycheque, what house to buy, how to arrange the mortgage payments, when to schedule time for vacations. And I remembered the elderly couple of men down the street who just loved walking their dogs - every day they walked those dogs, they were their pride and joy. They resemble me. My resolve to stick with the church on this one is shaken by the ordinary experience of everyday life.

But in all cases, the simple path is not to judge, and to forgive abundantly when there is cause to do so. I have much to be forgiven for, and like the woman washing Jesus feet with tears, I remind myself that my need for much forgiving must inspire me to much loving, which he commended her for. Too often, the harshly formed views Christians sometimes have of others that they do not approve of is too rigidly formed by legalism, and insufficiently informed by Love.

May I always love much.