Six years ago today, my first husband and I were married.  The marriage didn’t last, but the day is still very clear to me.  I spent the night before my wedding at a friend’s house.  We got bagels and coffee the morning of the wedding.  I remember getting my hair done, racing around town doing last minute wedding stuff.  I remember getting into my dress, all poofy and way too dressed up for my usual tastes.  My aunt did my makeup.  Funny—she did it at my second wedding too.  And then there were the pictures—pre-wedding family shots.  Shots with my step mom, who looked very elegant (but I think I told her she looked stately).  Me and my dad.  The groomsmen.  My husband-to-be. 

And as the sun began to set, my dad walked me down the isle (it was an outdoor wedding).  The musicians played Canon in D—I wouldn’t dare walk out to Here comes the bride.  My dad was a traditional man, and I knew that he loved me in that dress.  He loved my hair, all swept up on top of my head.  He loved the strand of pearls my step mom gave me to wear.

The ceremony was short—I didn’t know about Quaker weddings then (with their tendency to last what seemed like forever).  We had the requisite dinner and dancing afterward—most of the food was homemade by my family.  Aunts and uncles bustled around the kitchen all day to get the soup just right, the fruit arranged perfectly.  It was beautiful.  And when the night came to an end, my husband and I walked through a million little bubbles on our way out.  It was a fairy tale wedding.

But the fairy tale ended quickly.  We fought; we grew apart.  We moved to a new town, and that only magnified the problems in our relationship.  We decided to separate, to go our own ways, to see other people.  My father, who had cancer, died.  And a quiet sadness settled over my family.  Dad was gone.  My marriage was over.  I was in a relatively new town with a job that wasn’t going as well as I’d hoped for. 

It would be dishonest if I said that my life turned around suddenly, that things were finally good.  That God spared me from emotional turmoil or financial struggles. The years between that wedding day and this day have been hard.  But they have been good too.  I found a faith community (yes it was Quaker), and a new job as a result.  I found a new husband too, although we have much to work through.  I made friends, started a business.  I went back to college and got my degree (finally). 

Six years can be a short time, or a lifetime.  I guess it just depends on the circumstances.  Either way, my life looks completely different from the way it did when I was 23.  I’m more settled now.  I’m trying to accept certain things about me—my OCD, my depression, my size 18 body.  But I’m working on some things too—really enjoying the times when I’m not depressed, reading more, reflecting more.  I’m trying to live in that here-and-now place, I guess as my husband’s counselor would say, I’m trying to be “present”.   I’m trying to be more present in my relationships too—and not just the human kind.  I’m working on my relationship with God. With creation.  With the pets I care for.

Six years has brought me into a very different place.  Time can do that.  I hope you know it will do the same for you.

Tony the simple churches guy asked this, and it produced a slue of emails with different replies.  Because I am lacking in wisdom and grace, I am posting two of the emails I read.  The first one is by Tony himself; Tom Edgerton wrote the second.

…Among those of us who know Jesus and try to keep his commandments, I think there are different understandings and interpretations of what that means.  To me, the most basic commands we are to keep are found in the Kingdom Manifesto (Matthew 5-7), which obviously includes the command to love your enemies.  We don’t all understand that the same.  My experience with a number of so called Christian communities has been that if you are not into the whole Mom, the flag, and apple pie thing, they will not allow you to be part of their community.   Or horror of horrors, you chance to mention that because of your convictions about peace and loving your enemies, you voted Democratic rather than being a part of the evangelical Christian base Tim Russert talks about that is solidly behind the Republican Party and its values. Trust me on this one, there are a number of Christian communities from which that alone will absolutely exclude you. You and I have talked before about this whole Left Behind/Left to Burn craze going on among contemporary Christians.   I have a hard time getting excited about trying to be in community with people who are looking forward with great relish to the time when they’ll escape from this evil place and all those other wicked people will finally get what they deserve.  I don’t think it creates any great passion for those in the world who are without hope; from where I stand it smells a lot like smugness and self-righteousness and smells is the word.  More to the point, I was in a group the other day that was talking about eschatology and what was an orthodox point of view.  I am I believe the term is a preterist - I believe most of the book of Revelation was written to the first century church, understood by the first century church, and experienced by the first century church.  Can I safely say that and still remain in community with those who have a different understanding?  I guess we’ll find out since I just did. Let me tell you what I will probably remember most from the conference you and I both attended last weekend.  When we did the exercise about how we experience God, another minister came up to the group I was in and said his profile was lacking in green, that maybe he should go out and hug a tree or send some money to FCNL or one of those groups.  I suppose he was trying to make a joke, but the underlying meaning was very clear.  If you don’t experience God the same way I do, you’re wrong - so wrong that it’s ok for me to make fun of you.  Well guess what?  My three colors were pretty well balanced, but know what my primary was?  You guessed it -green.  And that one comment really made me feel uncomfortable and out of place for the rest of the day.

What Spencer Burke said there just really resonated with me.  We as church fellowships claim to be relational communities, but as Leonard Sweet so aptly said, most of us are still operating in the propositional realm.

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“Community” implies a certain like-mindedness, yes, but more importantly for me, it also includes a component of mutual spiritual challenge. I don’t attend the Meeting I attend because I want everyone to agree with me, I attend it because I can count on my Quaker brothers and sisters to challenge me and help me grow in my Christian understanding to a deeper and more fulfilling place. What good would it do me or my Friends to sit around and congratulate ourselves on knowing the Truth as an end in itself? On the Last Day, I don’t think I’ll get points for knowing the Truth but doing nothing with it. Jesus promised us a lot of things—good and bad—that would result from following him but I don’t remember that “comfortable” was on the list. Any church that posts a sentry at the door to keep the sinners out so that the Pharisees will be comfortable inside is a church with no spine, and to my mind, no future. If I am to be a follower of Christ, then I expect to have to engage in the world, and our work in it, outside the church door. But I need the help of all my Friends to discern what that work is, and sometimes we disagree on this. What else would you expect? It’s simplistic to ask someone if they are “washed in the blood,” and expect that a simple yes or no answer will be the end of the discussion. Rather, it’s the beginning of a lifetime of discussion-and yes, sometimes debate-about what being washed in the blood means and how we are to conduct ourselves as Christians. Maintaining that some Friends [Quakers] are washed in the blood and others aren’t is divisive, unloving, and unhelpful. Wouldn’t it be easier to just assume, for purposes of discussion, that anyone who calls themselves a Christian and a Friend and shows up at Blue Ridge [for our annual business meeting] is washed in the blood, and then get on with our Society’s business?

…We can’t make anyone do anything they don’t want to do. I can’t make you like the people I choose to like, and if you’re going to see them as sinners, I can’t stop you. But I think it’s appropriate for me to ask you, in the light of what we as Quakers say we believe, to consider what that judging does to their spirit and to yours. And there are a host of other things we need to be discussing and doing as well. Spiritual challenge. North Carolina Yearly Meeting of Friends ought to have the resiliency to allow for this; if we don’t we have NOTHING to say to the rest of the world. No guts, no glory, as the saying goes. Yes, John 15:14 says “you are my friends if you do what I command.” But the meaning isn’t found in the next verse, for me it’s farther down in John 15:17: “This I command you, that you love one another.” Community.

I have witnessed something lately that really pisses me off—so called justice. Let me explain. It all started with a conversation between a family member and myself. It concerned Saddam Hussein’s death sentence. I commented that Quakers (sadly, this does not apply to all Quakers) are uncomfortable with the death penalty because we believe we do not have the right to take the life of another. My family member responded that it was Scriptural to put to death anyone who took the life of another.
Well, I take issue with this belief. Here’s why: if we are living under the new reign of Christ, then doesn’t that free us from the Law of the Old Testament? And more important, Jesus never tells us to put our enemies to death. In fact, his instructions are quite the opposite, leading me to question weather or not it is possible to consider anyone your enemy when you are in a relationship with Jesus. But just so you don’t think I’m making this up, I’ll quote directly from Scripture:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy”. But I say to you, love your enemies. Pray for those who hurt you. If you do this, you will be true children of your father in heaven…If you love only the people who love you, you will get no reward. And if you are nice only to your friends, you are no better than other people. Even those who don’t know God are nice to their friends…” Jesus, in the Book of Matthew, chapter 5:43-48, selected portions

So, it is difficult for me to advocate putting anyone to death, because killing someone—whether it’s murder, war, or getting “justice” through capital punishment—doesn’t appear consistent with the teachings of Christ. Tony the simple churches guy said recently that a friend of his pointed out that we are to abide by the new Law—that being the law of Christ. We are no longer under the old law, as Paul aptly wrote in his letter to the Galatians: “…God sent his son who was born of a woman and lived under the law. God did this so he could buy freedom for those who were under the law and so we could become his children (Galatians 4:4-5, selected portions).
And Jesus tells us, God’s children, to be nice to our enemies, and to pray for them. Nowhere does he say that part of being nice is to kill them.
Perhaps this appears too simple. But in fact it is not. Yet Jesus never promised that following him would be easy. The truth is, I have to remind myself all the time not to be a jackass, and to respect those who surely do not respect me. But the more I love Jesus, the easier it is to remember his commands. The key is to remember that this isn’t about me, it’s about others.