Loving The Imperfect

The founding story of my country and my church are quite different in one area.  When I was growing up and studying history of the USA, Washington, Jefferson, Adams were towering figures that appeared seemingly without flaws.  They seemed to work well together to create our institutions and our government.  Monroe and Madison were equally wonderful.  My church, not so much.  Peter and Paul were the founders and they come across in the scriptures, the church early history, as full of flaws.  Plus they did not get along so well.  Eventually, they improved individually and with one another.  The early church was not so afraid to show our imperfections.  But I learned to love my church even with faults and failures.  Love does not require perfection, or else there would be little love in my church.  It was only when we had a powerful Vatican central government that we learned to hide our flaws.  My country hid flaws early on, but later revealed them.  Today we have wonderful modern critiques of our founding members.  Jefferson and Adams did not get along.  That they died on the 4th of July in the same year is quite ironic.  But having discovered many of the flaws of my country and our founders, I can still love my country.  Love allows us to work to change things for the better.  If you hate something you just leave it if you can.  People do that in my church.  But I stay to make things better in my own little corner of the church and my country.