The lessons of this blog's beginnings remain true.

1) The details of our long-ago-confessed and long-ago-forgiven sins and stupidities are the business only of God. They are not rightly the business of those who would turn them into cudgels.

2) The details of the sins of Other People are none of my business; I've enough troubles with my own.

3) Sins and stupidities do not negate goodness, wisdom, love, or generosity.

4) If we insist on having only perfect bishops who have only perfect priests, we will have neither bishops nor priests; for all of us have sinned, every single one of us has done spectacularly stupid things, and even the strongest and most faithful of us come equipped with two clay feet.

5) I have sinned and done incredibly dumb things; I have no right to ridicule, ever.

6) The judgment I judge is the judgment I will be judged by; the forgiveness I offer will be the forgiveness I receive. So how dare I even think of stringent judgment or withholding my forgiveness.

and, 7) from the last teaching of my gentle and devoted retired archbishop, who was the pariah when this website was birthed in the last week of May: . I have learned how frail my own human nature is, how in need of God’s loving embrace I am. Empty-handed for me now means a willingness to accept my humanity totally, just as Christ accepted that same human nature out of love. But for me it also means to be fully receptive to whatever God wants to place in those hands, to be ready with empty hands to receive new life.
But I am also aware much self-pity and pride remain. I must leave that pride behind. Each day I will try to leave room for God to enter into my life more and more. Ultimately I understand that the humanity God so loved and sought to redeem, including my own humanity, will be transformed by his loving embrace and grace.

These lessons will always remain the same, whether the current pariah's name is Rembert George W., or Gerard Serafin B., or Karen Marie Jochebed K. The truth endures.
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