by the time you are reading this erin & i are on the road, or if it is still early i am finishing mowing then lawn, then we are on the road to charleston south carolina. we are heading there for one of my best buddies wedding. this is the same buddy who you might remember asked me to officiate their wedding and caused a bit of a stir.
so how did and will this breakdown? i asked my pastor about it, he just said to be comfortable with your decisions (i think that was his way of saying yes with reservations that i have a pretty good conscience). i talked with my buddy about no misrepresenting myself or my role. we talked about doing the justice thing but they really wanted to do this one time, so did i.
we checked with the county clerk to see what requirements are for marrying in the state of south carolina. as it turns out, the requirements are pretty loose, or blurry for like me with a conscience. all one needs to be (other than a notary, probate lawyer, judge) is a "preacher of the gospel" & a rabbi of jewish faith. no lie, that is it. so do i consider myself to be a "preacher of the gospel" the particular clerk asked me? "uh, in the spirit of things i am." technically someone along the lines might have issue with that. from the clerk "if it becomes illegitimate at some point our common law marriage will kick in within 6 weeks. that is actually stronger than some marriage laws." ... me, "really?"
the decision..
i'll be officiating the service giving up responsibilities for the scripture reading and vows to chris's (my buddy) not technically "aunt" (best buddy of mom he's known forever). she happens to be a pastor of some denom, we think it might be umc. she was going to do the scripture reading anyways, so we decided to transition into vows right after and the flow is right and the awkwardness of bringing someone up randomly isn't there.
it's my first wedding. which is okay, i did my first funeral this year, though that wasn't really planned to happen the way it did. a year of firsts.
my first wedding homily will stem off of some words framed by dallas willard on love and kingdom. the best i could do not knowing the scripture. it's also better than the other idea (as erin tells me) of telling a story of saint benedict and saint scholastica. i thought i could make that work really well, erin thought it was gross to tell a story of brother and sister during a marriage ceremony... i won't do it, but i still think i could have made it work.
