Loudoun Times-Mirror
June 21, 2005
Rev. R. Don Prange, Pastor, St. James United Church of Christ, Lovettsville
The content of the letters of Paul Goze and Merilee Cummings (June 15) also made its way to the School Board meeting of June 14.
I also addressed the School Board and spoke of a “deep irony” in that the play, “Offsides” (around which concerns for a School Board policy on plays evolved), began with a reading from the Christian Bible, 1 Corinthians 13, in which St. Paul encourages a maturity of thinking in an atmosphere of transcending love.
Having seen the play (but I suspect most who have reacted to it have not), I believe it was a highly creative manifestation of both of those concerns of St. Paul. And, as the pastor of David Weintraub, I also know him to be a person whose maturity of thinking and transcending love for all humanity makes me proud to be his pastor.
I can only hope that Mr. Goze and Ms. Cummings might have someone around who might offer some pastoral care based on that same kind of mature thinking and transcending love. My own pastoral heart goes out to them because I sense they are somehow captive to some irrational fears, the kind that we sometimes have as children.
And as another biblical author reminds us, it is only perfect love that can transcend our fears. Were they to really know David Weintraub, as a person and not just as some kind of human statistic, they would discover a person in whom the kind of love St. Paul speaks of is being perfected.