Does anybody else remember the old 1970s Garanimal commercials for children’s clothing? Mix! Match! Save!
I think we need to revive the term—because I don’t know anything else to describe the press release that just showed up in my inbox, somehow dodging the spam filters that are supposed to save me from such things. “Singer/songwriter and social and political activist, Ed Hale,” it informs us, “lost his title of confirmed bachelor and tied the knot—not once but in three very different ceremonies!”
New York, NY, February 26, 2010 – The iconic singer of the rock group Transcendence, never known for doing things ‘ordinary,’ definitely did it his way in what may be the ‘interfaith wedding of the year!’ On February 13, Hale’s last Triple A radio hit single, I Walk Alone, no longer applied to him as he and the beautiful Nahal Mishel-Ghashghai, began their life together in a style that crosses all cultural barriers. At a church on the corner of Park Avenue in New York City, they were joined in a formally Islamic fashion in a traditional Persian wedding, followed immediately by a traditional Christian wedding.
The newlyweds then did “jump the broom,” a centuries-old African American wedding tradition, in solidarity with people around the world who are still victims of human trafficking and slavery today. At their reception, the couple held a traditional Tibetan Buddhist Ceremony as Venerable Pema of the Nechung Tibetan Buddhist Monastery performed Tibetan Buddhist prayers and bestowed wedding blessings upon them.
The press release doesn’t say what church that was on Park Avenue, but it hardly matters. Garanimal Religion! Mix! Match! Save!
February 27th, 2010 | 3:16 pm
I bet they’re divorced within 2 years.
February 27th, 2010 | 8:26 pm
Recently an African-American woman and Episcopal priest declared that she was both Christian and Muslim. Since my adult confirmation as a Catholic last year, I’m occassionally annoyed at the “protestantization” of the Church in America. I missed charismatic Catholicism; or maybe I didn’t. My mother was Southern Baptist and after my Episcopalian father died, my young sisters and I often were taken to tent revivals and a uniquely American menu of protestant denominations that included Spiritualism. My point: America has always been a religious mess. Is it getting worse? Yep. Is the Church adding to the confusion? Sometimes. The parish where I attend mass has a first-class music director and I have been taken back to my childhood more than once by his choice of hymns such as “How Great Thou Art.” It’s a hymn my mother would have grown up with and, like many former Anglicans, I do miss the Thee’s and Thou’s. The above case of throttle-up multi-culti spirituality is slapstick obvious in its dangers. But I sometimes wonder if the Church is on a slippery slope when it borrows from post-Reformation Christianity and expects Catholic thinking and doctrine to survive. After Anglicanorum Coetibus I read a number of hostile online comments about the hordes of orthodox Anglicans threatening to pour across the communion rail. After several moments of disappointment at what is in the Church, I felt something worse. Dread at what is to come. At the very least, Cardinal Rinze is trying to slow us down. There has to be a better way than Fr. Joel Osteen, Archbishop Dali Lama or Sister Marianne Williamson.
March 2nd, 2010 | 3:27 pm
I’m late to the party (as usual), but I just had to comment about Garanimals. I remember wanting the Giraffe ensemble. I tease my husband that he buys clothes using the Garanimal approach of matchy-matchy.
P.S. There was no mention of this “wedding” being GREEN. What a missed opportunity to include another faction!!
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