After work yesterday morning, R took me to meet the man who will be marrying us. He is the ombudsman for the medical center, a former minister, and a really nice individual. When I first met R, I often heard him use the expression, "direct, honest, and respectful" to describe his philosophy about communication in relationships... Well, this philosophy comes directly from his friend Dennis (who in fact has a published book about this; it's in our bookcase at home).
As we talked about our desires for the ceremony, he asked if we would like to include a prayer... I said we would. He also asked if we would like for him to include the passage about love from 1 Corinthians 13.... and I started to recite it. R later said to me, "I think he was impressed that you knew it"-- in reality I think it was R who was maybe a little bit impressed. Last night I searched the internet for the entire passage, so he could see it in context, and I found a fun website: Bible Gateway. I have no idea who maintains the website, but there's the Bible, online, and the best part: you can switch between versions. I was able to read the passage about love in the New American Standard Version, then the New International Version (which is what I printed out for him). Several other versions were available, and many different languages as well... It's possible to quickly switch between them due to a convenient drop-down menu. Cool! I would have looked the passage up in my bible, but it's tucked away in a box somewhere. I have another one in my car. I started the practice of carrying a bible in my car when I first began driving... and right away I had a mechanical failure out in the middle of nowhere! Having the bible available to read was a huge comfort. I don't know if I've cracked it open in the years since, but there it is in the glove compartment waiting for me. I guess it's part of my "emergency supplies". I also had the NIV version of the bible installed on my Palm Treo... That was pretty cool, but doesn't do much good since I switched phone carriers and was forced to get a new phone.
Why do I mention this? Despite all of my negative talk about Christianity, I really do want to find a way home. I once considered myself a devout Christian, and my heart is still open to being that person again... but I have definitely evolved as a person and my beliefs have evolved as well. I'm almost 100% certain that I will never go back to Christianity as I practiced it in my youth. There is much to commend about the church that I belonged to, and much to praise about the people I called friends. But at the end of the day, the Christianity that I was practicing was irrelevant. I took to heart admonitions to "be not of this world", and I took to heart warnings about how Christians are fighting a spiritual battle... I bought into an "us vs. them" mentality that wasn't healthy. Today, I'm unabashedly for humanism. I'm for finding common ground with others, rather than focusing on our differences, and I'm for finding a spirituality that has measurable societal benefits. Like it or not, we are all part of this world, and this world is worthy of investment and concern!
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