Had a long conversation with a friend from our old church this week. It seems that the reasons we left that parish were just one facet of some major dysfunction going over there; and in the year and a half since we left, things have really fallen apart.

I am relieved in one sense because we "got out," so to speak. But I am tremendously saddened for the parish itself. Apparently there are actually cliques and battle lines being drawn and all that nonsense. I've heard of dysfunctional parishes before but never really been part of one (though you could argue that I was part of a hugely dysfunctional denomination, I suppose).

Sigh. I am so grateful that God loves us despite our frailty, both personal and institutional.