So, this weekend, I went to a wedding of a high school friend of mine. It was held at a small Baptist church in a mapdot town off of US 301 of which MapQuest was unaware. The wedding was nice and quaint, and it was a good thing to reconnect with some friends whom I haven't seen in a long while.

I was sharing the story of the wedding with another friend of mine who also knew the groom, and in particular, telling him about one of the more odd aspects of the ceremony. After the rings and vows had been exchanged, the pastor annouced the bride, groom, and himself (representing God) would now take part in what he called "the sand ceremony". Finally, an answer to what the multi-colored cruets of sand were doing on the table up front. The bride took her place in front of the cruet containing red sand, the groom in front of the blue, and the pastor in between them in front of the white cruet, which represented God. (My friend quipped at this point that the fact that God is represented as white is a long standing tradition at Baptist churches along 301!) The pastor spoke about how each of these separate entities were of one color by themselves, but in the marriage, they became one, intermingled inextricably. (Again, at this point, my friend remarked that because the couple's son was already present, he would have thought the symbolism of "the two becoming one" was painfully obvious already!)

So, a yellow oil funnel was placed in the empty fourth cruet and they all raised their sand filled cruets and poured simultaneously into the funnel. But, they poured too much, so that the funnel filled up in addition to the cruet. They stepped aside to complete the rest of the marriage ceremony, leaving three half filled cruets of colored sand and one overfilled cruet/funnel combo of multicolored sand. I laughed as I shared this with my friend and said, "I want to know what the oil funnel represents!" He replied simply, "Well, Jesus of course. Jesus is the funnel by which we become one with God."

How simple.

-R