Back during chemotherapy, while I was lounging in my
recliner imbibing toxins through a tube in my arm and Partner was watching
"Let's Make A Deal" on the retractable TV, a young hospital chaplain
named Meredith came around to check on our spiritual needs. We politely let her
know that we were all set, thanks very much, but she (like chaplains through
the ages) was stubborn enough to chat with us for a while. She complimented us
on being such a close couple, and quoted something I'd heard once before about
"for better and for worse." She left before she became too obnoxious,
so I liked her. "Did you notice," I said to Partner after she left,
"that she never quite mentioned any one religion? Very non-committal and
non-denominational."
"I like that," Partner said. "I could get
behind a religion like that."
"I think," I said," that there is a religion like that."
So, a few weeks later, we both got ourselves ordained as ministers in the Universal Life Church.
Ordination is free; you need only provide name and email
address. For a couple of bucks, they will send you gewgaws like a wallet card
and an ordination certificate and a press pass (evidently for when I'm
interviewing the Metropolitan of Constantinople). After that, you need only
follow the church's one dictum, which is "do only that which is
right." (They further define that you must peacefully determine what's
right in every case; no gunplay and no rassling allowed.)
Partner and I are both obnoxiously pleased about this. We
are both in the process of determining the dogmas of our new church. Mine is
going to involve wearing a lot of pink and purple. (I determined peacefully that
I like both, and why not? Pink and purple are perfectly nice devotional colors; just look at the candles in any Advent wreath.) I will use a lot of multidenominational texts
involving silence. (Examples: "Let all the earth keep silence before the
Lord," from Habakkuk in the Jewish Bible; "Sky says nothing," from
the Analects of Confucius; "The way that can be spoken of is not the true
way," from the Tao Te Ching; and maybe also "That which we cannot
speak of, we must pass over in silence," the last line of Wittgenstein's
Tractatus.) My services will begin with maybe a piece of music, the reading of
a text like one of the above, and then a kind of community silent meditation,
the way the Society of Friends does it.
Also, did I mention the pink and purple?
Religion should be fun. It should be participatory, and it should
be meaningful to the people who participate. If they crave mystery, well, life
is crammed full of mysteries; meditate on a few of those. And if they crave
certainty, there are lots of those too. Just think about them quietly, would
you?
Partner has thought about his church too. He wants it to
welcome all comers, and he would allow them to worship any god they please, and he intends to forbid proselytizing.
(I hope it also involves hats. Partner and I both look good
in hats, and I hope he and I can lead some ecumenical programs down the road,
once we've established ourselves as pillars of our respective faiths.)
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