A look into Mop's brain!

I may have updates on my life, but I like gracing you with my thoughts every now and then...

Sooo,
the other day, I believe it was Monday, I came back from work and a copy of our newspaper, the Alvernian, was on the table. I didn't really think much of it. I think I was in my own little world, who really knows. Well, Tuesday I get up and I was sitting at the table and my friend Staci was sitting across from me waiting for my roommate Nicole to go to class and what have you. Stace picked up the newspaper and was looking through it. There was an article about how in 1998 when President Clinton was in Africa he received Communion in a Roman Catholic Church despite the fact that he is not Catholic. Staci said something about it, I'm not sure what though. Whatever it was, prompted me to make a comment about how I don't think that it's right that people can't receive Communion in the Catholic Church unless they are Catholic. The conversation sort of ended there and I went about my day without actually reading the article. I had no clue the background to what had actually happened or the backlash Clinton got for receiving Communion. Honestly, in 1998 I was more concerned with when I was going to be able to ride my bike like a big kid than Bill Clinton and his trip to Africa.
But the article kept coming into my brain. Maybe because I have been[or at least was over Spring Break] reading the book by Sara Miles which is all about the acceptance of others despite not only their religion, or lack their of, but their social class and education and economic status.
But it wasn't until about 15 minutes ago that I got to actually read the article. It has been a crazy week around here. The whole time I was reading it I couldn't help but think how ridiculous the situation was. We are surrounded by communities. The human race, the United States, our individual states, our families, the 14 of us. Those communities have meaning. But does the community of the Body of Christ matter? Yeah, we don't all believe the same thing. That would make it way to easy. But not everyone in every community in every country of the world believes the same exact thing. What makes it so difficult for Christians to get it together? Catholics. Protestants. Methodists. Lutherans. Orthodox. We don't all believe that the Eucharist means the same thing. But at the end of the day we believe that Jesus came down from Heaven and died on the cross for our sins. Isn't that enough?
Maybe I'm reaching for straws. Maybe the Body of Christ will never become one. But it leads me to wonder, if communities based on the love of God, the unconditional love of Jesus can't come together as one community what does that mean for the community of the world? No, not every community being formed in the world is based on the idea of God and religion. But how can we as Christians look at those types of communities and ask them to work together and work it out and come to an agreement and stop the fighting if we can't do that either?
In the are of International Relations religion is looked at at a global level. It reaches across borders and affects the world. So how can we reach across and affect the world? How can we bring people and ideas and opinions together? How can we become catholic, universal, for all?

Missing you like always!