a little married

Originally written 8/3/22

Twenty years ago today, I got a little married. It was a hot August night in Durham, North Carolina on August 3, 2002. Not surprisingly, of course it was hot in early August in central North Carolina. 

In this photo I remember being very hot. 

Hot from the temperature, but also hot from adrenaline. Hot from excitement to spend time with family and friends at Parizade now that the real work, the worship service, the legal marriage was completed at Duke Chapel maybe an hour or so prior to this photo. I was a baby. I thought I was a man at 27 years old, Kristen 28, but I was a baby. Still, somehow I knew some of the most important work that I would ever do was now accomplished and I could simply enjoy the party.

And the 20 years have been a great party and the party that hot August night at Parizade was a great party. It's mostly been a party, not a drag, a drudgery, but a pleasure.

Today it will be 93 degrees. It was about that, maybe a little hotter on August 3rd, 20 years ago.

Today we will toast with cake and champagne. 

 

Religion should appeal to the hearts of the young

Originally written 1//25/25

Gideon by My Morning Jacket (MMJ) came into my hearosphere driving from New Smyrna Beach after watching an amazing sunrise on Monday morning. 

I was thinking a lot about church. Who is there? Who is not there? Why? Why not?

Early in the song, Gideon:

Religion, should appeal to the hearts of the young.

I agree with this. This is hard. This means for us who are old, giving up some things. In my world, it has meant giving up hymns, not altogether, but as I know them and and as my father knew them. Sometimes, this giving up feels too much to bear, almost a betrayal of those who came before me.

If I don't worship with Blessed Assurance out of the hymnal, am I turning my back on George Edward Linney, Jr. (my father) or Sarah Johnson Linney (my grandmother)?

I did give up these hymns in a faith community, the new music, the new creation, filled my soul in ways that no music had ever filled it.

Church, in my view, in the troubled world of the 21st century, has to compromise on personal preference. We need pragmatism. What will give young people a chance to try getting in the door to the local church? Do that.