Rash Promises

CHAPTER 1

Promise Keeping

“I promise before God and these witnesses…as long as we both shall love.”

If I had ended my marriage vow with love rather than the traditional live, it might have limited my commitment. Then, if I ever decide to get a divorce, breaking my vow might make me less guilty before God. But I am trying to keep my vow. God is the judge of whether I am more than quarter-heartedly trying to keep my commitment.

A number of brides and grooms pledge “as long as we both shall live.” Rampant divorce these days suggests that a large proportion of married couples are breaking their vows. It would be better not to promise anything than to make a rash promise that is later broken.

Jerusalem

My wife and I got married in the garden of Christ Church in the Old City of Jerusalem. At that time, I was living in the Christian Quarter of the Old City. (On my first visit to Jerusalem, when the Old City was still under Jordanian control, I stayed in the Muslim Quarter just inside Herod’s Gate.) I also lived in East Jerusalem and West Jerusalem.

To tie living in Jerusalem to rash promises, I’ll connect one of the places where I lived to the history behind it. I lived for about half a year in Ein Karem, a suburb of Jerusalem. The house I lived in had been vacated by Arab Palestinians fleeing the advancing Jewish Palestinians during the 1948 war. With the establishment of the State of Israel, armies from surrounding countries attacked. Local Arabs were told to vacate their homes for a little while until the Jews were pushed into the sea. That was a rash promise.

In 1966, when I stayed in a room just inside Herod’s Gate, I was passing through Jordan on my way to England. I had wanted to go to Israel but didn’t have enough money. Those going through the Mandelbaum Gate between East and West Jerusalem got an Israeli stamp in their passports, but with an Israeli stamp, they couldn’t enter an Arab country. If I had gone to Israel, the cheapest way to exit would have been to sail to Cyprus and proceed from there.

So I hitchhiked through Jordan to Syria and then, after a side trip to Lebanon, to Turkey. I had to pay my way crossing the Bosporus from Asia to Europe. From the European part of Turkey, I hitchhiked through Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Austria, Germany, and Belgium. Then I had to pay my way again to cross the Channel from the Continent to England.

Background

Although born in Canada, I had lived in England as a child. Thus, having arrived in England, I had travelled around the world. Others didn’t seem substantially impressed with my accomplishment.

When I was visiting relatives, a cousin who was a curate in the Church of England took me to a Billy Graham crusade. At the end of his message, Billy Graham called for those to come forward who wanted to turn their lives over to Jesus. During the singing of Just As I Am, many left their seats and congregated in front of the platform. I wasn’t one of them. I wasn’t ready to make such a promise.

Before continuing with my testimony, I’ll relate my previous experience with rebornersthose who are “born again.” My reborn friends spoke Christianese. When giving me spiritual advice they used strange-sounding expressions, sometimes in antiquated English. To be born again, I needed to invite Jesus into my heart. They didn't appreciate my question, “Which ventricleleft or right?”

They didn't answer many of my questions to my satisfactionquestions such as “Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons?” (It could be that they did. When God was baking them, that’s where he poked them to see if they were done.)

To me, the story of Adam and Eve seemed like a fairy tale. It might have meant to illustrate cavemen (or cavepersons) beginning to wear clothes. Probably they first wore clothes for warmth, but in tropical climates, it could have been for modesty.

On reading that Adam and Eve, ashamed of their nakedness, sewed fig leaves together to cover their private parts, I wondered what they used as needle and thread. Perhaps they inserted one leaf stem into another, like a daisy chain.

When my reborn friends witnessed to me, I wasn’t ready to make a commitment to Jesus, or to anyone. Avoiding commitments didn’t make me happier, however. In fact, I was depressed. I even considered ending it all.

“But I haven’t seen much of life!” I promised myself that I wouldn’t do anything drastic until I had travelled around the world. Then I would decide what to do with my life.