Vows and vocations

One of my children came home and said that she had been told at school that she did not have to do what I told her if I gave the reason "because I said so" - I thought for a moment, decided this was a very intrusive thing for a teacher to say, and gave a short but brilliant speech about over-liberalism in child rearing which left her rolling her eyes,
"Not going to work?" she asked.
"Not really," I said. She wandered off to plan her next campaign.

Ethelrelda, whose day it is in England today, had two sets of vows which competed for her attention. Marriage, which had been forced on her at an early age, and the call to religious life. She chose the latter - but that is the difference between vows and outright laws - they are something we take on willingly out of love.

Sometimes we tend to think of vows as being specific to certain folks - married folks take vows, priests take vows but how about everyone? Well everyone who has been baptized has been through a vowing process.

When you are talking about vows you take what is already there as well as making them your own - both verbs are used. So when you get married you both take upon yourself the mantle that is marriage and make a marriage with another person.

Vows are both sacred and contractual and in our society are not something which we are probably that comfortable with. We are not, anymore, a society of joiners - we do not like to sign on the dotted line. We like the idea of drive thru anonymity and the ability to leave whenever we feel pinched or squeezed.

But vows have a good side as well as a bad side - when I go out to cut the grass I know where to stop and start because I know what is my yard and what is not. If someone said to me - well we don't really have yards here and we expect you just to cut until you cannot cut anymore - that its how it is done - I would cut a lot more grass and someone somewhere would read a lot more newspaper. So vows give me a context for safety and growth - sometimes I strain against them but mostly I am grateful for them.