Who'd have thought Goerge Michael and Limp Bizkit would be right?

As you know, I attended a wedding this past weekend down in Jamaica that was absolutely beautiful. Brad and Amanda looked fantastic, and I don't mind telling you that I was pretty stylin' in my linen pants and shirt as a groomsman. But I have to admit my lasting memory from the trip wasn't the ceremony on the beach with the wide open expanse of beautiful Caribbean ocean as a backdrop nor was it the multiple late nights catching up with my very best friends. No, the thought that will stick with me from this very special occasion is that the concept of faith finally makes sense to me.

And it is my understanding of that very important concept that I would like to share with you today. Now before I come to my great epiphany on the beach in Jamaica let me back up a bit. My entire life I have tried to find a spiritual connection to the world around me. I have studied nearly all of the major religions in the world (most of that studying came during a bit of an existential crisis I felt I was having during my time in New York) and while I departed from my birth religion of Episcopalianism to follow the teachings of the Buddha for about 2 years, I have since returned and feel very at home and happy at my current church, St. Andrews in the Old Village, Mt Pleasant.

Now before you write me off as another Bible-thumping religious wacko from the South, let me assure you that I have no intention of turning this particular piece into an evangelical work that is designed solely to convert you to my way of thinking. Nothing could be farther from the truth. I have nothing but the utmost contempt for people who foist their beliefs on others, be they religious, political, economic or what to have for dinner tonight. There are very few people who come equipped with the necessary intellectual tools to guide others to believing as they do and most times, the ones who are capable, use those tools for less than gentlemanly (or womanly) reasons.

No, my goal here today is simply to put into words something that had a very profound effect on me and hope that it provides you with some insight into who I am. Please take nothing more from it.

So back to the task at hand. As I said, I am currently a member of an Anglican/Episcopalian church that many would consider pretty progressive. We have a rock band who plays music every Sunday and the congregation is very enthusiastic, but most importantly to me, we have a rector who is not afraid to be challenged in his belief. That is why, when attending a service about 2 weeks ago, I got very excited when I saw we had a guest speaker who was going to give a sermon entitled, "Is belief in God rational?" Finally someone was going to try and take an analytical run at deciding if there was good reason to believe in something greater than ourselves. The hard-nosed, "the numbers either make sense or they don't" private equity professional in me had been waiting on this for a long time.

Well I'll spare you the details but the sermon lacked anything approaching true analysis and relied mostly on very suspect logic to arrive at the predictable conclusion that, yes, it is indeed logical that there is a supreme being of some sort. I was pretty let down about the whole thing because the ultimate cause of my spiritual search is that I have never met anyone who could explain to me in terms I felt comfortable with, what religion is and what it does. There is always a gap in the traverse from Point A (I am a reasonably intelligent and rational human being) to Point B (therefore God must exist). It's like the episode of South Park with the underpants gnomes. Their business plan was: Step 1 - steal underpants; Step 2 - blank; Step 3 - profit! I needed that Step 2.

Well it was at this wedding that I have discovered what, for me, Step 2 is and that is faith. Why did it take the wedding of a good friend to enlighten me to this concept? Well I began to think as I dug my toes in the sand and polished off yet another Red Stripe (quick side note - is there anything better than drinking at the beach? How is it I can drink about 20 beers on the beach and not be comatose? Another meditation for another day I suppose...) when I began to ask myself why anyone would ever decide to get hitched with the state of marriage as it is today.

With half of all marriages ending in divorce and many of those divorces turning people into horrible caricatures of themselves as the marital assets are divided and hearts are broken, what would posses a sane person to enter into that covenant? The answer I realized was this concept of faith. It is because you believe that, even with all that potential pain down the road, the love you feel for this person right now in this perfect moment, makes everything else worthwhile. You don't know that you won't end up in a bitter separation that tears your household apart, but you're willing to risk it on the faith that your love will weather all storms. That's a pretty kick-ass thing if you really think about it.

Let me put it in other terms for those who are not familiar with that particular brand of vodka. What about your pet? Have you ever had to put down a family dog or cat? Have you ever had to pet their soft heads as they (hopefully quietly) slip away? It is truly a devastating experience. But when you're sitting there bawling your eyes out, would you have traded all the wonderful times you had with that companion for the years leading up to that moment just to take away that pain? Of course not! And for me, the reason you don't trade those great memories is because you had faith that, even though you may someday lose your pet, all those great memories will assuage and someday cover up that pain.

I'll close today's addition with the hope and wish that in reading this you begin to think about what faith means to you and hopefully you gain your own spiritual awakening to whatever belief system you choose because, for me, knowing that I now have an understandable and tangible concept of what faith is, the sun is shining just a little bit brighter and I have a new perspective on the world that will hopefully make me a better businessman, a better husband, and, ultimately, a better person.