I Am a Holy Woman (tm)

By WordyGrrl


Ever know a couple that's just such a perfect couple that they nearly make you sick up? Together more than a year, yet still putting mushy notes in each other's lunches, sending flowers and -- the kicker -- using actual snail mail to exchange smarmy, adoring cards? And they drop frequent hints that they're still burning up the 500-threadcount Laura Ashley sheets with each other.

My pal Miss A and her girlfriend Miss J are such a couple. Sure, they get teased about it, it's really refreshing to see two normal, sane women enjoying a healthy and happy relationship. A great pair of gals, and they're as much fun to hang out with individually as they are when they're together. Trite as it may sound, it's nice to see two nice people join forces to become a nice couple.

It's no surprise that they're thinking of getting married. After all, it's legal in California, which is a mere daytrip from Washington state. We've even joked about loading up an RV with other lesbian couples and doing a long weekend roadtrip there for that sole purpose. Now that'd be an adventure worthy of YouTube, eh?

So a few days ago, I get a call from Miss A. She and Miss J are out running errands, and they've just come up with a great idea. Apparently the idea that they'd like to have me officiate their union. I was so shocked, so tremendously honored that I nearly dropped the phone. I mean, it's one thing if they ask you to be a bridesmaid. But to actually DO the honors? Wow. Talk about feeling all warm and fuzzy.

"So start Googling and find out how you can become Sister Wordy or something," Miss A said. Five minutes and several keystrokes later, I became Reverend "WordyGrrl" (not my real name, duh) of the Universal Life Church. It's an organization so open-minded that their logo is a string of everybody else's religious logos, and their main motto is something along the lines of "Be Nice."

Called Miss A back, and let her know that if she's serious, things are a go. I am now legally able to enunciate some lovely verbiage and pronounce them married in the presence of two witnesses. Well, it'll be legal when same-sex marriage becomes legal in Washington state, but you get the idea.

In any case, I am now a Holy Woman ™ , invested with the power to say nice things at weddings and funerals. No word on their site about conducting exorcisms in the aisles of WalMart, but I'm hopeful. Scenes from that godawful remake of "The Crucible", starring Winona Ryder, are coming to mind. [Game idea: do a shot every time somebody calls out Goody's name.]



I've got so much to do! As a newly-ordained Holy woman ™, I need to design some raiments, create a dogma, a catma, it's endless!. Declare my kitchen a church, designate a finely-crafted microbrew as a sacramental wine, etc.Already decided that Girl Scouts Samoas will be the official "wafer," with the classic shortbread as backup in case any parishioners don't like coconut.

There's also a catch: I'm agnostic, a secular humanist. Meaning that my "belief" is that the existence of God/Godde can be neither proven nor disproven by science or logic.

I don’t slam religious beliefs at all; talking about it is as fascinating as recounting ancient Greek and Roman myths. Sometimes we need an emotional justification to explain the unexplainable. To put off grasping our mortality. To look at a leaf and ignore what we know about photosynthesis and to be simply amazed at how it changes color over the course of a few months.

As an agnostic Holy Woman ™, how does this work? If I'm not sure God/Godde exists, who am I entreating to listen? Whose blessing am I asking for?

Somewhere out there is a small child who's convinced there's a monster under the bed. A big, scaly smelly one with glow-in-the-dark eyes that nobody else can see. Just the kind of beast who needs to be exorcised, driven out with a few fancy phrases and a spritz of "holy water."

And there are a couple of sincere, loving women, a perfectly matched pair, who want to proclaim their one-ness before friends, family and whatever Supreme Being exists.

There are fears to be quashed, confirmation to be given, love to be celebrated. Who am I to remain inert? Somebody as to say something! Do something! Drape something around my neck, hand me a smudge stick or some of that leftover incense. This Holy Woman ™ has work to do, even if there's no giant, magical superbeing to tally it up.