What does it mean to belong to a community where we are not simply welcomed, but cherished?  To cherish someone is more than to accept them, more even than to love them in some abstract, universal sense.  To cherish is to hold someone as precious – to recognize that there is something in them worthy of tenderness and care, no matter what wounds they carry, no matter how much healing they will need.  For our covenant is not a promise that we will be perfect; it is a promise about what we will do when we are not.