Attended my cousin’s lovely fall wedding yesterday. I’m not really sure why, but I’m always encouraged by the fact that no matter how modern our society gets, we still take the time to mark life’s momentous occasions with ceremonies. It makes me feel like we still fit in with human history and tradition. And for some reason that’s a good thing.

This is the one reason (and pretty much the only one) that I regret the decline of religion in our society. A baptism, independent of the religious aspect, is a community getting together to welcome a new person into the world. Funerals are a community getting together to fare a loved one well. What could be more human? There are secular alternatives to weddings and funerals, sure, but how often do we bother with them? It seems to me that organized religion always made sure the rites took place.

Now, here’s a question: we all know what it means when you catch the bouquet at a wedding. But what does it mean when you deftly catch the bouquet as if it were the perfect frisbee pass, and then your cousins turn into hyenas and start ripping it out of your grasp, and you feel the flowers coming apart in your hands, so you decide to let it go to save the bouquet?

Well, I guess it means my love life isn’t likely to improve anytime soon.