danieldwilliam | On Tales of Two Weddings

I'm not a relgious man. In fact rather the contrary. I tend not to be much in favour of organised religion and a bit baffled by individual spirituality. I'm not sure I have much vocabulary to contemplate it.

Over the last week I've had four near religious experiences. I mean I was near religion. Two weddings, a dialogue and a monologue It was during the dialogue that the subject of faith came up and crystalised in my mind that I would struggle to have a useful conversation about religion as it is experienced by the religious because I'm not sure I have the language to relate their experiences to those that I have in common with them.

This didn't stop me going to two wedding this weekend which both had a decided religious element. One was a fairly conformist Church of England ceremony. The second wedding was an interfaith wedding between a Jewish groom and and a deeply, but non-conformist I think Christian bride.

I could tell that the religious aspect were very important to both couples. The first wedding, in its Church of England traditional format seemed to me to involve a God quietly but profoundly assumed to be there and to be God in the same way for everyone. The second wedding felt more of a dialogue about and between diferent ways of experiencing and relating to God. The religion and the spirituallity much more out in the open. Perhaps an artifact of two people with deeply held but differing views finding a way to share and accomodate the views of the other.

I suppose what I've drawn from the experience was this, that my own assumption that everyone who is silent on the subject of religion is unmoved by it is worth reexamining and that some dialogue about the subject is probably to be welcomed.