I hope your ankle is mending well. Illness is definitely a great teacher! The value of empathy can not be overstated. But your friend has wisdom to, if it is in your power to care for yourself better, carpe diem. The Divine has many ways to instruct us. The more we listen, the softer and gentler the message.

Reconcile?Why would you reconcile?Remember the oppression of women, suppression of independent thought and freedoms, and of course how could you forget the crusades/inquisitions. Remember this is the organisation which invented antisemitism and created the first jewish ghettos. Why would you want to reconcile with a monster?I’d say even tolerating the churches(they’re all the same really when you get down to it) is condoning the above. While it may have guided countless souls, mostly it was guiding them to obey the priests and bishops into handing over money. Or young unmarried woman into enforced servitude and imprisonment because they had the gall to be pregnant(and this in living memory.)

Why reconcile with that?I know you’re probably not that reconcily but I have to say something in case you’re going soft on the Church.

As for the godparenting-I suppose it’s up to you. Personally I’d be encouraging said friends to tell the priest to ram the contract where the sun doesn’t shine and then arrange their own baptismal/baby celebration but that’s just me.

Or you could just lie. It would only be a lie to a non-existent being and to someone who says or pretends they serve said same non-existent being, so it could be argued that it’s not really a lie.

The questioning aspect is interesting. It reminds me of the Fisher King story. It is only when Perceval(or is it Galahad-I get the grail questing young knights confused sometimes)asks the fisher king ‘what ails thee?’ that the fisher king is healed and land renewed. The article I read was examining it from a depth psychology perspective and was looking at the question in terms of the psychotherapeutic and empathy creating aspects which resulted in healing and wholeness.

OK packages will be forwarded to you as soon as I get myself organised enough to send stuff off. Will take 2 or 3 weeks prob as I’m all over the place these days!

You’ll find your way. It has really helped me to focus on letting go, not pushing, trusting God. I have found the most helpful prayer/intention to be “Your will, not mine,” because if I can’t completely trust God, then what is the point of any of this? I spent too many years digging little wells here and there and not getting deep—for me, Christianity is the path. (Christ is my path, anyway—I often have disagreements with Christianity.) But I finally felt, very strongly, that I had come home and it was (and is) a wonderful feeling. That doesn’t mean I don’t still struggle! Especially when I stop letting go and trusting.

God will lead you to your path.

I love your last paragraph, it reflects the whole conflict for many of us. I have written several posts about my struggles with church. I finally decided it doesn’t have to be perfect for me to be a part of it. It’s a human construct, after all, but there is community there and it’s wonderful to worship God in this way. I decided not to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Thinking again about your previous post:

I’m a member of the Episcopal church, which is really very open and not forceful about rules and dogma. That’s what I have found, but it does depend a lot on the parish, mine is very liberal (I think gays make up more than half our membership). Maybe you could go meet with a priest at the church and talk about the issues. If your friends chose you to be the godparents, then that is what should be most important.

I just found this one by Mercedes Lackey and this post came to mind- usually it’s vice versa:

“There’s no such thing as `one, true way’; the only answers worth having are the ones you find for yourself; leave the world better than you found it. Love, freedom, and the chance to do some good — they’re the things worth living and dying for, and if you aren’t willing to die for the things worth living for, you might as well turn in your membership in the human race.”