I went to my cousin’s wedding over the weekend. The service was short (20 minutes) and instead of classical style music to bring the bridal party down the aisle, they played Beatles tunes. “Here Comes the Sun” was one of them, but I’ve forgotten the rest. Those boys and their love songs, I tell ya. It was a nice switch from the usual.
While sitting in there before and during the proceedings, I pondered the existence of a banner hanging from the church wall. It must have been one that was up all the time, rather than something special for the day. It piqued my interest because it said, “Fan into flames the gift of God with you.”
Pyromaniacs unite? It just seemed like an odd phrase to me. While fire can be cozy, it can also burn a person into cinders leaving just a few bits of cranium as proof a living thing has died here. Is that what God wants all his followers to do, burn themselves up into a holy fire to prove God cares extra special for them simply because he gave them the power to destroy themselves?
During the service itself, I tended to tune out when religious language rolled around, but during the vows (the bride was laughing – never saw a bride giggling at her own wedding before – completely tear free, too) I paid some attention to what got said because what got said launched the bizarre into the stratosphere for some reason. Do you take this person to be your lawful..yadda yadda..until death tears you apart or until the second coming of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ?
All I could think at that moment was, “Jesus Christ can annul weddings? That’s a power they never talk about…”
I kind of giggled to myself for a minute and then tuned out again.
One interesting thing did get said, and I was going to tune it out, too, since the speaker from the bridal party said it was something some old monkish bugger once said. I regret ignoring the name now, because it turned out to be a very nice analogy. I think she was quoting something he’d written about love and “in love” and how the first powerful, passionate feelings two people may have for each other isn’t love in the same way it can be later in their relationship when things cool down a little (or a lot).
It’s like two trees that grow side by side (I’m trying to paraphrase it). Nobody knows exactly how close they are until the roots are inspected. If the roots are separate entities, then taking one away won’t hurt the other one. But if they’ve been beside each other long enough, the roots might be entwined into many tight complexities to the point where it’s beyond all ability to pull it apart without causing irreparable damage to both of them. They are, for all intents and purposes, one living thing by that point. And that is where the love is; where the two truly become one.
One Minion's Opinion 