I can not change you

The first session of our teaching series went great tonight. We had a good mix of folks from a number of perspectives, and the conversation was indeed lively.

One of the hardest lessons I've learned over the past year is that I can not change people. I learned this most when one friend left his wife, and his wife read Blue Like Jazz and then forgave him. I learned it too when another friend reached a nadir of hedonism. And I learned it when another friend and I reached the crux of our philosophical disagreement. These experiences have made this prayer, "For Those We Love," all the more real for me:

Almighty God, we entrust all who are dear to us to thy never-failing care and love, for this life and the life to come; knowing that though art doing for them better things than we can desire or pray for; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. [BCP 1928, p. 597]

People are like magic mud: force them and you fail, but earn their trust and you will at least have a friend who is different than you.

I have no idea yet what this personal-level truth means for something big like Christianity, where my gut is that you need lines of some sort for the thing to be at all interesting. However, Bishop Duncan inspires me that this pattern can somehow apply on larger scales. We shall see next week, when he invites 50+ alpha males to cooperate. Feed back to Chad Whitacre.