“Dear Supreme Court,
Thank you for your recent ruling regarding same-sex marriage. While many people, including myself, have substantive concerns about the legal and social implications of the majority's opinion, I am grateful for all the conversations it has ignited. I can't say I'm grateful for the way certain people communicate their feelings and position, but I sincerely appreciate the opportunities you've helped make possible.
In fact, I'm thankful for the opportunity I have and will have to talk about a deeper problem, and its relationship to the more basic issues to which the phrase “gay marriage” points: sexuality and matrimony. I do wish you could hand down a decision that would be ultimately decisive, a ruling that could actually change what rules us. But even though you are the highest court in the land, I know you cannot. You see, what taints both human sexuality and human matrimony is something no judicial decree, legislative effort, or executive order can affect. It is a horrible reality no social program or military initiative can address.
Forgive the pedestrian sound of this, your Honors, but I call this cancer, “me-centeredness”. Here's what I mean: “me-centeredness” tempts me to believe MY feelings and desires are supreme (no pun intended), that the subjective should always trump the objective, and that my instincts are always healthy and right. This is especially apparent in the areas of sexuality and matrimony.
And if you can believe it, both those who celebrate and those critical of your ruling suffer under the exact same shadow. Talk about equality! It's this “me-centeredness” that entices a husband to get more worked up over your legal decision than the indifference he regularly shows his wife. It's this contagion that tempts all of us to enthrone our sexual appetite, to embrace a sexuality without boundaries, and to vilify anyone who even suggests limits to our pleasure. It's this specter that leads so many of us to establish our very identities on the quicksand of human emotion.
So after this bleak description, you may be wondering why I am thankful for opportunities to talk about such bad news. I do so because there is good news of freedom. No, I'm not talking about some kind of political freedom, but freedom from “me-centeredness”. I was often told as a kid (as you may have been also), “Well, the world doesn't revolve around you.” Thankfully, that's true. But the world, in fact the universe, does revolve around someone: the One who created it. And even though we have denied his centrality through our attitudes and actions, wonderfully, our Maker eagerly invites us to throw ourselves on the mercy of his court.
As esteemed judges, I think you will appreciate the words of the only human being who can make this freedom a reality: “If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day.” (John 12:47-48)
So yes, I'm guilty of being grateful to you, not for your words, but for new opportunities to share the Creator's words in a world abuzz with talk of new freedom. Thanks again!
P.S. Do you really have to walk up all those steps when going to work, or is there an easier employee entrance? Just curious.”
2 Comments
Sheryl Cooper
Well written Bryce. Thank you.
Mat
I really enjoyed your post Bryce. Take care bro!
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