c. 2006 Religion News Service

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. _ Wedding homilies need to be upbeat and brief, and mine last Saturday toed that line. But there was more to be said. Later I will mail these words to Liz and Will, for consideration in the fullness of time:

Like your grandparents, you launch your marriage in a difficult time. It is a time of war, an odd and tragic war that has isolated your nation and made the world more dangerous for you. Events at the front seem strangely disconnected from life at home, and yet your horizons are being shaped by them and by terrorism that is gathering momentum.

These are strange times at home, too. Your lives might well continue the scenes of family joy that we saw in a slide show at your rehearsal dinner. The human species is adaptable and durable. Families form and survive under all conditions. But I think you need to be prepared for discontinuity _ not bad times, necessarily, but different times, stressful times, which will challenge you to see reality and not to get lost in delusion, and to be flexible, not stubborn.

So much is changing. Assumed verities of American life are passing away, from carefree driving to long-term careers to boundless optimism. The emerging era strikes me as hopeful and interesting, a wonderful time to be young and in love. I also know, however, that many are threatened by it, and as we have seen in recent elections and religious ideology, the threatened are fighting back, trying the impossible act of restoring former days.

Married life has many contexts, of course, from the immediate context of new jobs and new locales, to the deeply embedded context of family. You both come from stable families _ long-term marriages, close generations and siblings who treasure each other. Many around you haven’t been so fortunate. What you have known is different from what many others know. You will need to make room for diversity.

You are serious people, in an age when the search for hipness and escape has turned many young adults to manic pursuits. You could feel yourselves getting out of step, missing out on fun in the trendy hot spots. I just hope that you remember who you are, and that giving is more necessary than taking, and helping others matters more than consuming food, drink, fun and things.

This is a challenging time for the religious. We are in the odd position of hearing more talk about religion but seeing less evidence of faith. We hear scathing demands for “morality” and then see the moralizers unmasked as hypocritical. We see a so-called “Christian agenda” turned into massive wealth for a few, scapegoating of the vulnerable, “Big Brother” scrutiny of people’s lives and interactions, and a general atmosphere of meanness.

This isn’t the faith you grew up knowing, and it isn’t a faith that should ground your marriage. I hope you will have the courage to swim against this tide.

Here are my wishes for you: that you dare to see reality as it is, that you seek no hiding from each other, that you find a common place for welcoming God into your life, that you be patient with one another, and that you love all that God has made.

May your home be a haven of peace and sanity in an increasingly difficult world.

KRE/JL END EHRICH

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, consultant and leader of workshops. His book, “Just Wondering, Jesus: 100 Questions People Want to Ask,” was published by Morehouse Publishing. An Episcopal priest, he lives in Durham, N.C. His Web site is http://www.onajourney.org.)

To obtain a photo of this columnist, go to the RNS Web site at https://religionnews.com. On the lower right, click on “photos,” then search by subject or slug.