God’s a pretty busy guy, it seems. For weeks now, he was doing the miracle thing with the new messiah, Tim Tebow, and then drunk dialing Rick Santorum. And now it comes to light (obviously a devine one) that he’s the mastermind of a website that matches Christians with their soul mates.
I know. I was quite shocked when I learned of this, too. While God is indeed omnipotent, he also appears to be something of an entrepreneur.
It seems that, while handling famines, wars, typhoons and the outcomes of football games, God had found the time to set up Christiansmingle.com.
I’m sure you’ve seen the commercials on TV for this. A booming, deity-like announcer voice booms through the set, “Find God’s match for you.”
Geez, where was God and the Internet when I needed him most?
As you know, I thought I had met my soul mate in high school way back in 1976. Through the miracle of God’s infinite grace, he had enrolled Heather Tinknell at the same school I was at. I almost didn’t find her either. I had to wade my way through quite a few girls first. I was just a month away from graduation and would have never met my soul mate if it weren’t for the International Fair. There she was selling Ojo de Dios at the Spanish booth – yes, Eyes of God. A light glowed around her like Roma Downey on Touched By an Angel.
OK, I’m making the part up about the glow. But I had thought I had met my match.
Sadly, she wasn’t my soul mate. She turned out to be an ex-whatever five years later. Ten years went by until I found my real soul mate. And yes, I believed that. But somewhere along the way, I found yet another soul mate, so that one went by the wayside. Unfortunately, that soul mate didn’t last long either. People get thrown in jail longer for drunk driving than I was married the last time. And looking back, jail time would have been preferable.
Sometimes I feel like the proverbial dog with the bone. You know the one. He comes upon another dog at a pond where he went to get a drink. The other dog has a bone in his mouth, too. Thinking he wants both bones, the dog goes for the other, dropping his own bone in the water in the process.
That pretty well somes up my search for a soul mate in this world.
Now, Christianmingle.com doesn’t really come right out and say that they have the soul mate market cornered. True, they have five million Christian members and membership has increased 40% in the last year alone. But they are quick to say that God works in other strange and mysterious ways as well, which makes sense, since any smart businessman would want to diversify as much as possible.
I do have to admire the faith these people have in Christianmingle.com. Well, I guess I shouldn’t be that surprised, since well, faith is what drew them all to the site in the first place.
But you have to love someone like Carabelli358 from Port Charlotte, Florida. When asked why she had signed up for the site, she said, “I’m in search for the man God has for me.”
There’s only one problem with this. It seems The Bible doesn’t really say much about the idea of soul mates. As we recall, things didn’t work out particularly well for the original soul mates, Adam and Eve.
These soul mates were told not to eat from the tree of knowledge, but Eve listened to a snake instead and ate the forbidden fruit. Adam wanted in on the action, they both ended up naked, God found out they disobeyed him and punished women everywhere, ever since, with painful childbirth.
Other religions don’t go for the whole soul mate thing either. Islam, for its part, rejects the concept of soul mates outright. Not surprising, since Muslim women wear burkas, requiring men to engage in a cruel game of Let’s Make a Deal to get a prospective spouse, not ever knowing what’s really behind the curtain until they get married.
The problem with the idea of soul mates is that it really sets a lot of people up for failure. According to some relationship experts, the belief that one person has been put on this earth just for you leads some people to go through a string of relationships or even marriages in search of “the one.”
I feel really sorry for those poor saps who signed up on this site and actually go out on a date.
From the moment your eyes meet until you say good night, it’s a constant game to see if he or she is “the one.” I’m not really sure how you know, either. Does God whisper in your ear “Hey, Carabelli358, he’s ‘the one.'” Do angels sing like in the movies? Does a heavenly light shine down on the person like it did on Heather (oh wait, I made that up)? Do you hear wedding bells?
I’m just not sure how you tell that this is your soul mate. Sure, they are Christian, and as such, you should automatically have something in common – your faith – but even that’s pretty shaky ground. For instance, does God do cross-religion relationships? Can a Catholic hook up with a Pentacostal? Or should God branch out, getting domains like lutheran-lovers.com or pentacostal-pairings.com so that the soul mating process is even more specific.
Me? I’m happy hanging out at piratespassions.com. These people seem to be more my ilk, wenchish women who are about as godless as they get. And they don’t be needin’ ta see eye to eye (and toes ta toes), if ya get my meaning.
Out on the Treasure Coast, soul searching,
– Robb