I've been bummed for a couple days and I can't seem to shake it off. No surprise here -- I worry too much -- but sometimes there's a valid reason to be disturbed.  I know that you guys love me and you know that I love you... so I'm going to rest on that while I air my thoughts freely. You will disagree.

I'm upset about Sarah's wedding which is happening at the air museum and being officiated by a friend of Craig who I think received his license to marry people online. I love Sarah and I like what I know of Craig. If they want to spend the rest of their lives together, then they should be married. Yes, I said should. There's my first point. The commitment of marriage is the appropriate foundation for a couple's life together. It means something. It means that 'We're in this forever', no matter how tough it gets. It means that no one else can enter the picture. Historically, it has meant that children are hopefully coming. Nothing casual here; this is serious business. 

I recall my wedding day. When I said 'I do' to Dad (shakily, as I was crying), I had the firm conviction that I had just said 'I do' not only to Dad but to God as well. The spiritual dimension of that moment was overwhelming (and I was barely a practicing Catholic at that time). It was not a merely human contract into which we had entered for as long as both parties were content.  I believe that God was truly there, that He gave something to us both, and that we gave something to Him. You may think that I deluded myself with a bit of Marx's opiate, but I disagree and I've had 28 years to experience the reality of it. 

Of course the presupposition here is that God is real. In your most logical moments, can you see any other possibility? The infinity of time and space alone... the order of the universe such as the elliptical orbits of celestial bodies with the sun at one of the foci (What?!) and the predictability of days and seasons... the mind-blowing e^(i pi) + 1 = 0 ... the laws of physics... the breathtaking beauty of the Kenai fjords... Bach, Beethoven and company... the intangible but so-very-real experience of love, joy...  Just too much to ignore. There's an infinite Author out there.

And I choose to believe - maybe not as logical but certainly possible - that this divine Author has the ability to interact with us. And there is plenty of evidence - albeit circumstantial - that this happens somewhat regularly. Miracles - yes, I do believe in them.  And Jesus? Most historians believe that Jesus did exist and some of them believe that he resurrected from the dead. Not a human power, therefore a superhuman power. Good enough for me. I know where some of you are on this, but if you're willing to believe in the existence of Xerxes and Cleopatra and Hammurabi, then you should at least be willing to acknowledge the existence of Jesus. And if he did exist, then he was either a liar, a nutjob or the son of God. Too cool and wise for the first two. [C.S. Lewis's argument borrowed here.]

And while Jesus lived on Earth as a man, he is reported to have said lots of "big" things, among them "What God has joined, let no one put asunder." I take that to mean God is part of the three-part equation of marriage.  And three is a good number. Remember in geometry when you learned that it takes three points to determine an (infinite) plane. Irrelevant? Maybe but it serves as an analogy, like the steadiness of a tripod, that a third piece is often the part that sets firm the other two.

So, yes, I'm upset with Sarah. She's leaving out the most critical component of marriage and expecting her Catholic and Christian families to celebrate as if that doesn't even matter. It matters.