a moment worth praying for

1st: as those of you who know me are aware, i’m not a very religious person. but some things are absolutely worth praying for.
2nd: with all the big “firsts” in this inauguration, i fear many people are missing some  of the finer details. like this one:

It is widely known that President-elect Obama asked the first openly gay Episcopal Bishop, Rev. Gene Robinson, to be a part of the ceremonies. What is not known as well are the words the Bishop spoke as he delivered the invocation at Sunday’s We Are One inauguration concert.

This is one of the moments worth praying for.

“O God of our many understandings, we pray that you will bless us with tears –- tears for a world in which over a billion people exist on less than a dollar a day, where young women in many lands are beaten and raped for wanting an education, and thousands die daily from malnutrition, malaria, and AIDS.”

“Bless us with patience and the knowledge that none of what ails us will be fixed anytime soon, and the understanding that our new president is a human being, not a messiah.”

“Please, God, keep him (Obama) safe. We know we ask too much of our presidents, and we’re asking far too much of this one. We implore you, O good and great God, to keep him safe. Hold him in the palm of your hand, that he might do the work we have called him to do, that he might find joy in this impossible calling, and that in the end, he might lead us as a nation to a place of integrity, prosperity, and peace. Amen.”

with love,
sabrina

 

the point

So I’ve been wondering:What is the point of marriage?

Is it to be able to say we’re married?

That is to say we have one person in our lives with whom we reciprocally care enough to tie ourselves together?

Is it to share our lives with that person?

And if so, what does sharing our lives look like?

Is a shared life one of shared thoughts and ideas?

Shared efforts?

A shared home?

A shared bed?

Is the point of marriage to create a space within this world where we and our partner (and any children that come to us) can feel safe and welcome and valued?

Is the point of marriage to create a place within this world where our shared thoughts and ideas can take physical form?

In other words: what is the point of taking one relationship and raising it above all others to call it marriage? And what does that look like in practice?

And how do we get there?

 

And so it begins…

Mine is not a new story.

Girl meets boy; girl falls for boy.

Girl gets pregnant.

Girl and boy get married, move to suburbs and ….

…pause to breathe.

Yes- pregnant.

Yes- married.

Yes- “move to suburbs”.

Welcome to my new life.

We’re gonna have a WHAT?!

My husband (let’s just call him R.) and I had been dating off and on for about four years in the summer of 2005. And we were headed for another “off”. He had given up his full time masotherapist position for a desk job with his folks’ company and was commuting from The City to my funky little Hippie Village (a four hour drive) [refrains of Gilligan's Island ring in my head "a four hour drive, a four hour drive"…]. I was a 70-hour-a-week chef with a day job. We were struggling to keep our relationship in tack. The drive was killing him, and that was killing me. Much as I loved my job(s) and my community, I wanted to see if we could really make it work. I agreed to leave my Hippie Village and try living in The City.

THEN we got pregnant.

I woke up that morning and knew. Just like that. (Yes, I did buy a test to confirm it.) (Two, in fact.) Thankfully, it was the day he was coming “home” for the weekend. And to his credit: he took the news better than I did.

A week later, he talked me into getting married. In the interest of preventing gay marriage, the brilliant law minds of our state had effectively abolished common-law marriage. Therefore, if our child or I ever got hurt or ill, R could have been legally barred from being at our side for the lack of a piece of paper. So we decided to sign the paper.

Note: I had always said I had a better chance of having a child than a husband. Children can happen by accident. Husbands cannot. And now I was about to have both.

Before I could change my mind, we told our friends and family, called on a friendly minister and – two weeks to the day we learned we were having a baby – got hitched. It was actually a very sweet ceremony. From our friends humming “Here Comes the Bride” to our families coming out to be with us, we truly could not have asked for more. This was the perfect wedding for R&I.

Moving into The City

Another week passed, and we were moving into our new flat in an “up & coming” part of town (read: bad part of town trying to be better). We should have known things were gonna be interesting when we pulled up to the house and there was a couple smoking crack on the back porch. Knowing R was out front with the moving van and his mother (imagine typical suburbanite…), I approached the couple and introduced myself.

“Hi. I’m the new tenant.”

“Oh. Hi.”

“Look, I can see how great this spot must be for you – with the green grass and the shade and the way its kind’ve hidden from the street and all, but my husband and I need to be moving our furniture in, so if could you gather your things and …” (me hoping that would be enough said…)

“Oh.” (them not moving.)

“…and move on?” (me REALLY hoping that’s enough said.)

“Oh. Um, when you movin’ in?” (still sitting.)

“Today.” (smile fading)

“Oh. Um. Um, can you come tell us when the moving van gets here?” (not moving yet.)

“It’s here. Out front. Right now.” (me hedging toward the steps, realizing this isn’t going to be that easy…)

(oh, wait a minute…)

“Oh. Um, Um, Ok.” And with that, they picked up their meager belongings and left.

By the front walk. Right by Mom-In-Law …

“They were WHAT?!? You need to call the police! You need to not move in here! You need to ..” It took a bit, but we did manage to calm her down and when the first playful shots of the night were fired off down the street later, we decided it was time to lock the van up and call it a day.