Saturday 22 August 2015

A secular wedding.

I love the fact that the BBC uses lots of different faith representatives to introduce a thought for the day before eight o'clock.
Over a few weeks we have had Buddhists, Hindis, and all the various Christian denominations.
This morning we had a Seikh spreading a message of good feeling...and he reminded me of the various Seikhs I have known.
Teaching in Rochdale during the seventies meant that I met many people of different faiths...and we did talk about our faiths......
Our small school, devoted to teaching English as a second language took in pupils of very many shades of religious belief...
We were a staff of about fifteen...and were all shades of both colour and belief...
Some of our lunch times discussions were very revealing..as staff came and went, religion was high in the list of our earnest chat!
When one of our teachers was getting married she asked for help...she wanted a quiet but joyful day and it didn't have to be legal...
Many earnest discussions ensued...we were a motley bunch of different religions...
I was the only Anglican..two others were Catholic but lapsed...and that was where Christianity faltered...the Hindis and Buddhists predominated with one Seikh, one Muslim and two atheists...
Getting a wedding service together for our much loved colleague took up a whole term of very earnest discussion...
I can't remember in any sort of detail now the exact nature of the service but we all took part!
Poems were read, many words were shared...it was truly ecumenical especially as the couple made heart felt vows to each other...no one person lead this service...each one of us contributed to the whole thing.
My contributions were readings from The Prophet by Khalil Gibran.
The bride forbade us to pray for children for them...she intended to stay childless.
We ended by singing together. "Imagine" by John Lennon. We were actually very emotional.
I look back to those days with quiet joy...we were a disparate group of friends but produced a meangful service based on a sharing of both religious and secular belief..
I am now in touch with only one of that group of people....but for a little while it worked...I hope the happy couple are still together!

3 comments:

Ray Barnes said...

What a recipe for the world's problems Jean. I am sure the will is there for the majority of people. It is just that the few have such very loud voices.

Revjeanrolt said...

All that's really needed is goodwill Ray.. Another word for love...we really did for a short while love each other....There's just not enough about at present for many!

UKViewer said...

All I can say to this is that God's Kingdom was increased in the process that you collectively went through.

And good will (or love) is something precious to be nurtured. More unites us than divides us, and we should build on the bits that unite us and work on the things that divide us. In mutual prayer and love.