March 24, 2004
Speaking of anniversaries, Jeanne D’Arc reminds us that today is the 24th anniversary of the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero. By, as Jeanne correctly recalls, “a professional assassin acting on the orders of Roberto D’Aubuisson, a graduate of the School of the Americas.”
Archbishop Romero has headed up Electrolite’s commonplace section for quite a while now. Here’s his entire prayer from which that one line is taken.
It helps, now and then, to step back[11:42 PM]
and take the long view.
The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of
the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.
Nothing we do is complete,
which is another way of saying
that the kingdom always lies beyond us.No statement says all that could be said.
No prayer fully expresses our faith.
No confession brings perfection.
No pastoral visit brings wholeness.
No program accomplishes the church’s mission.
No set of goals and objectives includes everything.This is what we are about:
We plant seeds that one day will grow.
We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development.
We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.We cannot do everything
and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.
This enables us to do something,
and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way,
an opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.We may never see the end results,
but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.
We are workers, not master builders,
ministers, not messiahs.
We are prophets of a future not our own. Amen.
Amen. And congratulations to you and Teresa. You've made a good start.
Compare and contrast: "Bishop likens gay weddings to marrying your pet".
I'm no theologian, but it seems to me that somebody here is missing the point, and I don't think it's Romero.
Congratulations and blessings to you both!
You and Teresa beat Marilee and I by about 9 months -- 12/29/79 in our case. Any good wedding stories? (We have an entire set ready to bring out and bore everyone silly with. Comes with the territory.)
I have loved that prayer for quite some time. Thank you so much for posting it.
I'd like to copy those words to my own LJ sidebar, I think. Lots of things here we all need to be reminded of every day.
And congratulations to you and Teresa. I'd forgotten we share this auspicious day, though I know you did tell me a while ago.
I'm still slightly startled to realise that I really have been an adult for longer than I was a minor. How did that happen?
Ooh! Silver! (Or, in dog's years, two diamonds, a gold, and a wood.)
Congratulations. Now. Why don't you head back out for another lap...
Happy anniversary to you both!
And thanks for posting the full text of that prayer. I think I'm going to print it out and put it somewhere that I can read it more often.
How lovely for you two, to be such good friends for all those years together. Congratulations seem as if they would be beside the point, but please take them all the same.
Congratulations to both of you! A quater of a century is quite a milestone. All the best,
Colleen
Congrats.
Of course, just to make you feel old, I'll note that you were married within a quarter of my parents.
Happy Anniversary, and I love the poem. Prayer.
Congratulations (albeit a day late) to you and Teresa. May you two have another fifty years together!
Congrats. I don't know if it would be amusing or depressing or annoying for me to note that I was nine months old when you two tied the knot.
And thank you x1000 for posting that prayer. I really needed that. My faith is still hurting quite a bit, but those words go a long way toward healing things.
Congratulations. Wow, 25 years. That's a couple months before I became vegetarian, even.
Kellie, all of the above. A little.
Favorite memory from a quarter-century ago:
Stately plump Bill Patterson saying, at the end of the ceremony, "If there is anyone who objects to this union ... they should have spoken up a long time ago!" At which point Tom Whitmore popped up like a jack-in-the-box and said, "I did!"
When I come out to others about my polyamory, one of the oddest things that generally happens is when I am asked how long I've been with my partners. People are often more astonished at the lengths of my relationships (twenty-two and fifteen years, respectively) than they are by the fact that I'm involved with more than one person.
Oscar Romero's prayer reminds me of nothing so much as Rabbi Tarfon's saying, recorded in the Pirkei Avot:
It is not incumbent upon you to finish the task. Yet, you are not free to desist from it. If you have studied much in the Torah much reward will be given you, for faithful is your employer who shall pay you the reward of your labor. And know that the reward for the righteous shall be in the time to come.
It's a good bet that Romero had this mishna in mind as at least part of the inspiration for his prayer.
"It's a good bet that Romero had this mishna in mind as at least part of the inspiration for his prayer."
Also, for that matter, the Bhagavad-Gita: "Yours is the action for its own sake. The fruits of the action are not yours."
Xopher, I'm glad to have slightly amused you, though the "Young Rebel" in me is also happy to have slightly annoyed you. :) The slightly depressive quality of my little factoid cuts both ways. Realizing I'm barely older than someone's marriage makes me feel extremely young and ignorant, but then I remember how much I've forgotten already in my life, and I get depressed.
It could be worse...you could be younger than 25, like me. ;)
It took me far too long to hear the irony in this: "...but then I remember how much I've forgotten already in my life..."
*waves to fellow youngun* Hi, Mark.
Kellie, I bet you can think of at least some people who you know very well whose marriage you're younger than. (I'd fix that, but I'm an old commenter, and tired.)
I certainly do. I'll be attending their 50th in October.
Xopher, excellent point. I'll be attending my grandparents' 50th in July 2005. Which reminds me that I need to organize some sort of cutesy grandkids skit or something. (My parents made it to 22 years before the big D.)
A belated happy anniversary to you both. You're four years ahead of David and me. I am confident that we will never catch up.
Pamela
Christ, I hadn't realized it was that long. And that's only how long you've been married.
Congratulations on the big anniversary.
(I'm coming up on my 20th myself.)
I keep asking my conservative friends just how exactly
gay marriage is supposed to threaten my marriage,
and they never quite give me a coherent answer.
Have you figured out what they're on about?
Congratulations, Patrick and Teresa!
Yikes, I remember emailing you when it was "just" your 20th...
...now at my fifth anniversary this May.
Congratulations! I can't believe you got married when you were 10 years old. What activist mayor issued that license, anyway?
You are a great couple and superb bloggers.
Man, 25 years ago, I was living in Ill Manor, typing apazines on ditto masters. Or maybe I was already taking it to Kinko's (their second location). Those were the days, waiting for something to happen. Then it started happening, and it hasn't stopped.
Happy 25! (That's a wish as well as an observation...)
Belated Mazel Tov on your silver anniversary. What a wonderful occasion...
A belated happy anniversary to you both. You're four years ahead of David and me. I am confident that we will never catch up.
That strikes me as being a surprising failure of the imagination. Angie and I are at just under 19 years so far, but I am supremely confident that my cunning plan involving accelerating the Flatiron building to 90% of the speed of light will allow us to catch up soon enough.
Congrats on all that time together. I hope I'm that lucky someday.
If it's not gauche coming from some feller who doesn't know you - Happy Anniversary, Nielsen Haydens. Here's to many more.
Hard-Hitting Moderator: Teresa Nielsen Hayden.
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