Conquering Vertigo

I married an altar boy

While we were dating, some of our most vigorous conversations were about religion. Not so much spirituality or the "conversation with Jesus," as Richard puts it, but church-based organized religion. When I say vigorous, I mean the spirited discourse where two people engage fully on thoughts, feelings and values, where worth is NOT an issue. Disagreement was usual but never threatening, a hallmark of of a healthy relationship.

I came to the conversation on my arc of raised-southern-baptist-ordained-minister-non-denominational-pastor-and-woman. He came to it from his arc of raised-roman-catholic-culturally-tasted-the-spiritual-buffet-wound-up-in-a-methodist-church-cook-man. With two such divergent backgrounds, the surprising thing is how much we agreed upon.

So here we are married and participating in an Episcopal church in San Francisco. We're called one night and asked if we want to join the altar guild, i.e. lay people who help serve communion and carry some of the accoutrements for the 11:00 a.m. service. Richard is enthused, as I am, so we go through training.

Although we have asked to serve together, while we're novices we're serving separately so as to reinforce the learning from more experienced partners. This Sunday will be his first "live" service, and he's going to make a great altar boy.

posted by Woman In Love @ 3:45 PM