Article by Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite

Reblogged from Sojo.net (Sojourners Magazine):

“God is in the connections” is a point Beverly Harrison, the noted ethicist and theologian, makes so well in her book Making the Connections: Essays in Feminist Social Ethics. With the “power of relation to sustain us … we can learn what we need to know. Christian love—both God’s love for us and ours for God and each other—means this: that we discover and experience, in the power of praxis and solidarity, a new wellspring of caring that fuels our passion.”

This kind of passionate connection should be at the heart of the commitment of love in marriage. The “holiness” of holy matrimony comes from this kind of sacramental practice. It is not given to a couple, any couple, whatever their sexual orientation, by virtue of a pastor like me saying the words over them in a sanctuary, though the promises couples make to each other in marriage ceremonies are very important. But these are not “once for all” kinds of promises. I tell couples (and myself!) that they must choose to be married every day. Every day you have to get up and decide to perform this holiness, giving and receiving, confessing wrong and forgiving wrong, caring enough to stand by in sickness and in health, and talking it through.

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