Midlife Meditation

It's just a piece of paper. That's what we've been telling ourselves for over a year--and really, what I've been telling myself for far longer than that. A marriage license is a document that only has meaning because human beings assign it that meaning. It's the same conceit that causes a more durable slip of paper to be worth whatever dollar amount we assign to it: without the tacit agreement of all the humans who are affected by the existence of this document, it would be nothing more than tinder for a campfire, recyclable material for a pulp mill, lining for a bird cage. I went for fifteen years without having my name on a marriage license, telling myself it was just a piece of paper. Oh, there were times I longed to be part of the legally wed club, especially as I felt my parenting years slipping away from me; but mostly, I comforted myself with the knowledge that the meaning of a marriage license is an arbitrary thing, assigned to it by a culture that fr...

It shouldn't make that much of a difference, yet somehow, it does. Amy and I have been a couple for five and a half years. We've been living together for four of those years. Three years ago, I declared Amy my domestic partner and added her to my health insurance plan. Two years ago, we started calling our relationship a "mountain marriage." And less than a month ago, we started signing papers and putting money down to buy our house together. After all that time, you'd think that saying a few words and putting rings on each other's fingers would be a mere formality. Clearly we're in love and dedicated to being together for a very long time, so why make a big deal out of these circular pieces of silver? Is there really anything different about the relationship since putting them on? In a word: yes. For nine days, I've been in a state of euphoria. It's not overwhelming or incapacitating--I can still drive, read, do the crossword, write this...

The first thing you need to know about mountain marriage is that we made it up. We were climbing Dog Mountain, talking as we climbed about a big step we were about to take: after a year and a half of me living in Amy's apartment, we were going to rent a house together, putting both our names on the rent and utilities. Our relationship had been growing deeper and richer, and now we felt ready. In real terms, the change was just of address; symbolically, though, this was a paradigm shift, from me living with Amy to Amy and me living together . We were heading up the shorter, but far more challenging, trail to the top, battling a ridiculously steep grade. Hiking, particularly mountain climbing, had served as a metaphor for our relationship from our second date, when we took our first hike on Leif Erickson Drive. The hardest climbs had the greatest rewards: the view from the top was always rewarding, but even more was the sense of conquering our bodies' limitations, pushi...

Good news for atheists wanting to preside over weddings in Indiana: you no longer have to get ordained in a fake internet church before you can sign the papers! I'm thrilled by this development for a variety of reasons, which I will tick off with bullet points: Contrary to popular belief, weddings have not always been the province of the church. Prior to the middle ages, in fact, weddings in the Roman Empire and its successor states were civil events. In ancient Judaism, there was no priestly role at all: the wedding was consummated--made official--in the marriage bed. Only with the decline of literacy did marriage come into the church, and it did so literally through the back door. Typically the only person in town who could read and write, and thus keep records, was the parish priest. This led to the back door of the church being a place where announcements were made, contracts sealed, and any other business else requiring a notary was conducted. Once marriage vows had been...

The weddings: Alex Falcone/Megan Niermeyer, Rosena Busse/Erik Grove, Melissa Anderson/Michael Dudleston. The funeral (early next month, and not pictured): Marge Jenkins. In general, I'm not a wedding fan. There are multiple reasons: 1) As a survivor of two divorces and one broken engagement, I'm just emerging from a period of marriage-shyness that has had me questioning the institution even for couples who've successfully practiced it for decades. 2) As a former pastor, I performed far too many weddings that left me with a gut feeling of ambivalence, knowing both that I had inadequately prepared the couple to fulfill their vows and that, even if I had, they were in far too much denial about what marriage means to have really learned anything from my efforts. 3) Also in the former pastor category comes the high stakes impressed upon couples by the wedding industry, all the expensive things that must happen for it to be a successful event. Wedding planners a...

It came out of the green. By that, I mean we were climbing up a slippery, ridiculously steep trail through the dewy trees on the south face of Dog Mountain when Amy popped the question: "Do you want to get mountain married?" It took me completely by surprise. We'd been together for three years at this time, and we were both extremely marriage-averse, for reasons I'll explain (but not in too much detail) later in this post. We were engaged in one of our favorite things to do together, something we'd done on our second date, and as often as we could ever since: hiking. Of all the things we enjoy together, this is the one that probably brought us closest, and has most cemented our relationship. We've been up every significant trail in the Columbia River Gorge, as well as trails in the Coast Range, the Cascades, and Utah. This summer we'll be backpacking, most likely in the Olympic National Park, possibly somewhere else, as well. In two days, to celebrate ...