I'm feeling a little philosophical tonight, so I thought I might try blogging some of it out. Forgive me if I ramble.

First and foremost, let me say that I applaud the ruling by the California Supreme Court on same-sex marriage. I am also pleasantly surprised by Guvnor Ahnold's statement that he will respect the court's ruling, and will not support any attempt to pass a constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage.

There was a time I would have thought differently, a time when I would have been outraged by what some call a reactionary court. I believed marriage was a sacred pact between a man and a woman, and any attempt to grant marital status to same-sex couples a direct attack on a Holy bond.

You see, I met a girl and I fell in love with her. She came from a very religious family, as in hand-raising, amen shouting Pentecostal religious. When I fell in love with her, I fell so hard that I changed who I was and embraced her family's beliefs. At first it was to please her, but as time went on it became very personal to me. I got heavily involved in the church. I am blessed, and yes I mean blessed, to have a considerable amount of musical talent. I'm not an instrumental virtuoso, but I have what many, many people have told me is a beautiful tenor voice. It wasn't long before the pastor of our church, who himself was, by his own admission, musically inept, asked me to help with the worship service. At first it was just old, standard hymns, but gradually I began to try and introduce the church to more contemporary music. The congregation was largely senior citizens and they weren't really receptive to that, but I did what I could.

That pastor eventually moved on, and a new one was brought in. At that time, I was a Deacon and was intimately involved in the process of interviewing and selecting the new pastor. The man who was finally chosen was in line with the age group of the congregation, but after he was hired problems started. I won't go into details, it dredges up too many bad memories, but suffice it to say that some who actively campaigned and were instrumental in his getting hired were unhappy when he didn't, acquiesce, to their every whim. He eventually resigned to avoid an ugly church split, and I told my wife that I didn't believe I could continue with that church. She agreed, and after resigning my position, we moved to another church of the same denomination that was actually much closer to where we lived.

The pastor at this church was named Phil, and he and his wife Tina very quickly became dear friends of myself and my wife. He too quickly saw that my vocal abilities were valuable, and he asked me to begin leading worship. More than that, he wanted to 'spice things up'. He was interested in not only appealing to the older members of the congregation, but reaching out to the young as well. As he told me once, "The church is getting old; if we don't do something to appeal to the younger generation, it's going to whither away and die." (That's a paraphrase but it conveys the gist of his sentiment.)

There were still some hurdles. We had a very sweet, elderly lady that played the piano for us and she just wasn't one for those new songs. She also wasn't one for rehearsals -- you didn't need them if you had the Spirit to move you. Don't get me wrong, I loved and respected her, but I firmly believed you had to practice to be spontaneous. I have never been one to believe that God just hijacks us when he wants to make his presence known -- He expects us to do the work, to be prepared, so that when he's ready to move, we're ready to be moved.

We started building a contemporary worship band. We added a keyboardist, a drummer, a lead and bass guitar player and a few others, with me generally leading and strumming my twelve string. We started playing more contemporary worship music, not rock-and-roll or anything remotely like that, but stuff with a flow that moved people. It was really great, but in all honesty some of the best worship services we had were when no one else could be there, and it was just me and my 12-string. One more than one occasion when that happened, the pastor never even delivered a sermon, he just went with the flow and we sang for the entire service. I tell you know, with no reservation, that I FELT the presence of God in those services. I could feel the ... oneness of the congregation. Everything was in sync, and as I lead them in song even my less than stellar instrumental ability didn't matter because we were flowing in a river of love.

I say all this to emphasize that I still believe, because I have experienced something that transcends all logic. You see, I'm really a very, very, very shy and introverted person. I'm the proverbial wall flower at a party. Warming up to strangers for me is like trying to create a beautiful statue from a raw hunk of marble with an emery board -- it can be done, but it's a slow and painful process. I've often said that I know God has a sense of humor, because he gave someone like me the talents I have -- talents that can only be expressed properly by placing myself in front of an audience and doing the one thing that is contrary to my very inner core -- exposing myself. But when I stood before those people and lifted them with my talent, we touched the Throne of the Almighty. No one will ever convince me other wise.

Yet all the while, I knew I held a dark secret, something so vile that if the congregation ever learned of it, they'd ostracize me. I wanted to be someone else. I had the awesome temerity to believe that I, a product of a perfect God, was a mistake. I wasn't suppose to be a man, I was supposed to be a woman. It was something I never confided to anyone, not even my wife. Only God heard my pleas when I went to sleep at night, pleas that I would wake up and find that I was who I was suppose to be. Of course those pleas availed nothing; every morning I woke up the same person I had been when I went to sleep. I won't say that my prayers were unanswered, however; as painful as it is to say, I truly believe God answers each and every prayer ... it's just that all too often, the answer is no. Let me add here that I don't see this as cruelty on His part; I believe He understands things we never can in this life. It doesn't make it hurt any less though.

So what's this all about? What has this rambling blog got to do with the sanctity of marriage? Well it's quite simple actually; you see one day my wife, the precious, beautiful woman I loved, who had brought about such a tremendous change in my life ... well, she told me she didn't want to be my wife anymore. I was, of course, devastated. It didn't help any that she told me that it wasn't me, it was her, that she had realized our entire marriage had been a lie, and that she had only been pretending to love me. It certainly didn't do my male ego any good when, after I pressed her, she said my sexual performance in the last few years had left her wanting, and that she had realized that one man just wasn't enough for her. And yes, I have a male ego -- if I woke up in the morning female, I would cry tears of pure joy, but that doesn't change the fact that for 45 years I have been male, bombarded by testosterone that has shaped my life, influenced my reactions and, sadly, thinned my hair.

It took some time, but I finally realized something I believe is quite profound. Marriage is just a word.

That's right, it's just a word. There's no sacred bond in it, there's no divine joining. Marriage is just a word, like bankruptcy or pizza or chocolate. It has absolutely no meaning other than that which we attach to it. It only means what we make it mean. You see, I don't believe what Mary told me; I don't believe that our entire sixteen years together was a lie. I know that my love for her was real, because I know that if she told me today that she wanted to try again, I'd say yes. Damn logic to hell, I'd wrap my arms around her and ball like a baby because I love her so much it still hurts, even after almost five years.

I don't believe that she never really loved me either, but I believe that there was maybe some shadow of doubt within her. We went through some hard times in the year before we separated and eventually divorced. Her grandmother, who we all loved dearly, was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She was given about two years to live ... she was gone in less than six months. I think she gave in, that her love for her family was so great that she just let herself die rather than subject us to a lingering illness.

A few months after that, Mary's younger sister took her own life. I was the first to know, and I will carry with me the rest of my life the memory of opening the door to our house and seeing a pretty young woman accompanied by a sheriff's deputy. She told me she was a victim's counselor and asked if they could come in, and as we sat down at the dining room table my mind was awash with dread. I truly believed she was about to tell me my beloved Mary was gone, but in many ways what she said was worse. Our sweet, vibrant, loving Ginger was dead. I'd know her for twenty years, since she was eight, well before I married her sister. At once I was struck with two horrifying thoughts -- how was I going to tell Mary, and why had I never told Ginger how much I loved her, and how special I thought she was?

Okay, I'm not going into that any further. I relate this because I believe these double tragedies drove a wedge into that seed of doubt Mary had harbored since we married. It didn't help that she never really grieved for her sister. Oh she cried, we both did, holding each other as the tears flowed, until there were simply now more tears to shed. But then Mary got clinical about the whole thing. Ginger had been sick; she'd struggled for years with depression and bipolar disorder. She simply couldn't take it anymore -- she snapped and in an act of desperation took her own life. But despite her clinical detachment, I believe she took a look at her life and decided she wasn't happy with it, or more to the point, me, and decided to make a change.

So again, what's the point of this tirade? The point is this; marriage is just a word. As I said, I applaud the decision in CA, but in the final analysis what does it mean? Same-sex couples deserve the same rights under the law that 'traditional' couples enjoy. They deserve the right to adopt, to medical benefits and all those protections guaranteed hetero couples, but in the end, marriage is just a word. If the state is willing to grant a couple those protections under some alternate terminology like a domestic partnership, then I see that as a victory. Don't get hung up on a word, because in the end, if there isn't a real, strong, enduring love between both partners, words don't mean a damn thing.

One more point, Like I said earlier, at one time I would have seen this ruling by the California Court a travesty. I don't believe that anymore -- people can, and do, change.

I'm done now.