Thursday Night's Love Feast

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ: It is Thursday night, and the General Conference is engaged in an exuberant love feast. I am here, but I am finding it extremely hard to give myself fully to what is happening. I feel so very troubled as I sit in this love feast... very troubled indeed! Were this communion, it would not be hard to share in it. The communion table truly is the table of Christ. At communion, we share in an eschatological feast where we live into the hope that the love of God will one day become all in all. The communion is a feast of remembrance that points us uncompromisingly toward a future of hope. But the love feast? The love feast is something different! Sure, this is Christ's table, as our worship leaders have proclaimed. But, in a far more real sense, it is OUR table. It is the place where we live out the love we share here and now... in this place... in this time... in the midst of our current reality. Somehow, this love needs to be more than metaphorical, more than a future hope. It has to be incarnate and real in our current practical reality... in this very real world in which we live. "See how they love one another." But, do we who are here at the General Conference really love one another to the point that we should be sharing this feast tonight? I do not know! I am not pointing my finger at anyone. I cannot! I am just as guilty in not loving as anyone else. I would, however, feel more comfortable today if we were lamenting and mourning our lack of love in the here and now... expressing our hope that love might be possible someday, even if not now. Today, there is too much pain today for a love feast, at least for me. Thank you for reading. Frank Wulf Clergy Reserve Delegate