One of the joys of Christian disicpleship has to be the diversity of opinion that exists among people who are all on what is, to use contemporary parlance, the same spiritual path.  Whilst there are core things that unite (though what they are and how they are understood is pretty diverse too) there is much where people of goodwill and in good conscience disagree wildly.  The ability to live with this diversity is part of what I love about the Gathering Place where all manner of views coexist without too many fall outs and without a wishy-washy laissez faire atmosphere.

Thus it is that this Saturday one friend of mine will be (presumably) inside Faslane as a naval chaplain, another minister and friend of the The Gathering Place (I know him, but not well enough to use the term 'friend') will be be outside it protesting.  Their views on things nuclear, their views on defence, their views on what it means to be a disciple of Christ will overlap and diverge many times but I have no doubt that each is called of God and is sincere and devout in his own discipleship.  I probably sit somewhere between the two, retaining a view in favour of the peaceful uses of atomic energy (and wishing people would stop confusing human error/arrogance with technological frailty) andhaving worked in defence (albeit primarily in terms of civilian worker and public safety). 

I recall at college meeting someone who had been at Greenham Common protesting when I was inside 'that place in Berkshire' trying to get the MoD to design a facility to meet safety standards.  This came up in the context of feminist theology, where she was waxing lyrical about the power of women tying bits of wool to barbed wire fences and I recalled the struggles of being taken seriously as a woman engineer in a male dominated world.

So, how do such tensions become creative rather than destructive?  My minister-friends and I hold disparate views on many things but endeavour to listen to, and learn from, one another.  Of course we all think we are right, but we try to do do graciously.  Sometimes we succeed, sometimes we fail.  Hopefully as 'iron sharpens iron' (as the Good Book says, somewhere) in the sharing, disagreeing debating, questioning and so forth we each grow and become more thoughtful and mature disciples of Christ.

Where will I be on Saturday?  In Glasgow listening to the findings of the Poverty Truth Commission.

God bless you both, A and S as you serve in the ways you believe you are called.