Re: [HoB/D] Generous Pastoral Response

[Louie Crew <lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu>]

XXX,  you were two years old when  Ernest and I  married 35 years ago.
We used the 1928 BCP; it was the 'latest' version at that time.  Its
fearsome pledges -- for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, in
sickness and in health, till death do us part -- continue to bind us to God
in this holy union.

In any good theology of marriage, the partners marry themselves.  Persons
marry not because they are good, but because marriage is good.   The church
may choose to bless or not to bless.

Does The Episcopal Church bless and honor our marriage?

Do you?

If not, you are diminishing yourself far more than we are willing to give to
you, to the church, or to the state the power to diminish us.  That's why
the church prays, "Shield the joyous."

Stinginess creates a hard knot deep within the soul.   Beware of hardness of
heart:  you can suffer from it without any awareness that you do until
caught in the grips of spiritual thrombosis.

Congratulations to you and XXXX on your 14th anniversary coming up in two
days, on Wednesday.   Be kind to each other when it's hard as well as when
it's easy.

Joy!

Louie, Newark deputation

Louie Crew, 377 S. Harrison St., 12D, East Orange, NJ 07018 973-395-1068
http://queereye4lectionary.blogspot.com/  Queer Eye for the Lectionary