Well, I'm Still Happy That Pastor Ott Performed My Wedding
So I'm like, you know, reading and stuff in LA.com and ran across the following line:
Sharon Stone is a licensed minister and performed her first wedding this weekend....
Huh? And there was a picture.
The la.com information was at least partially sourced from the
New York Post:
November 23, 2004 --
THE Rev. Sharon Stone? The star became a mail-order minister and performed her first official wedding over the weekend, presiding over the union of restaurateur Michael Bourseau and sometime stylist Brenda Swanson at her Coldwater Canyon home. Jack Nicholson and Robert Wagner served as the witnesses. Bourseau, who owns Mix in West Hollywood, was heard by a PAGE SIX spy saying, "No one's going to believe it when I hang my wedding certificate up on the wall." Stone's reps did not return calls for comment.
UK website Female First has additional information:
Sharon Stone has been ordained as a minister - so she could marry her friends....
Sharon, who was ordained by mail order, is not the first celebrity to become a minister - Robbie Williams was ordained over the internet so he could preside over the wedding of his friend Billy Morrison, while singer Sinead O'Connor is a Catholic priest.
Of course, it's not certain what type of minister she is, although this interview might provide a clue:
"I'm religious," says Stone. "Probably, to a lot of people's thought, I'm extremely religious. My practice is Buddhism, but I believe in God. Stone insists that there's no friction between overt devotion and her acting. "I've never had a conflict when I'm on a set," she says. "I've really given up my life to God and I know that's why I'm OK and at peace." Neither does Stone apparently see any conflict between her belief in God and her practice of Buddhism. However, Stone clarifies that "I don't believe in Buddha as my God...I believe in the practical ways of Buddhism as a way to live."
She certainly continues her interest in Buddha:
Sharon Stone likely to be part of film on Buddha
04th Oct 2004
Hollywood star Sharon Stone and a number of other celebrities, including Richard Gere, are likely to be part of a film based on teachings of lord Buddha.
The yet-to-be-titled movie will be a Rs.2.5 billion project to be directed by Shekhar Kapoor. The movie will incorporate special inputs from Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama and self-help guru Deepak Chopra....
Although the movie will have Indian actors in the leading roles, a good number of Hollywood celebrities – Gere, Stone, Melissa Mathison and Goldie Hawn – will be associated with the project in some way. Stone and Gere are also likely to act in the movie....
The project is backed by industrialist B.K. Modi, who is also the president of the over century-old Buddhist society -- Mahabodhi Society of India.
This is not the first Buddhist film with which Stone has been associated:
Rabbi Lew's Jewish meditation center is now open in San Francisco. He promoted the center while speaking at the Bay Area premiere of the film, "Jews and Buddhism," a new work by filmmaker Bill Chayes. The film was narrated by Sharon Stone and played at 40 film festivals around the world. It was called "One of the outstanding Documentaries of 1999," by the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Science.
Yet at the same time, note that she doesn't believe in Buddha as her God, as this tidbit points out:
In fact, Sharon Stone is so smart she hedges her spiritual bets. She is a Buddhist but attends Glide Memorial Church in San Francisco. Phil Bronstein is Jewish. Well, San Francisco, maybe that explains it.
A little more (circa 1999) on Stone and Glide Memorial Church:
Now past 40, Stone is seeking new careers in condom promotion and gun control. In short, after delivering a sermon at Glide Memorial Church Sharon Stone looks like she's caught that Hollywood disease whose victims assume that they, with their own good looks, fame and wealth are the answer to America's political and social problems.
And:
When she lived in San Francisco, Stone was known to attend Glide Memorial Church, and sometimes even delivered a sermon.
Whatever her religious views, Stone has had a near death experience:
Suffered a brain aneurysm, and was hospitalized for a while. [October 2001]...
Stone found her brush with death from a brain aneurysm has given her a new lease of life, "This brilliant, bright, white vortex of light was upon me. And then I was met by some of my friends, people who are very dear to me. But it was over very fast and suddenly I was back in the room and in my own body. It affected me so profoundly that I realized my life would never be the same again. It has definitely given me a new perspective on my career."
Back to Glide and Sharon Stone, taken from a piece written 30 August 2000 by Larry Nickolas Moss:
[N]ow is a time to tell of multi-cultural dream. Last night I had a dream about being at a rather funky church service. The service took place in a converted auditorium with old theater lights that showed pastel walls and weathered pews. A hot muggy air slowly flowed about. Faces appeared. They were colored in Caucasian and Negro, Latin and Asian, and Native American and Semitic. These faces were shaped by privilege and pain. Inner beauty and pain. Wealth and pain. Poverty and pain. Love and pain.
The Pastor was a joyous African American....
A tall blonde came on stage. She was far more lovely than the models that grace the covers of fashion magazines. Her gently tanned skin played against her short and deliberately kinked hairdo. She wore a simple black linen dress with a band of Kente cloth around her torso; it further accentuated a most lovely build. But it was not her accessory; she wore it like her identity. The congregants loved her. Oddly, in another setting, the blonde would have been the standard of Anglo-Saxon beauty. In a darker setting, she would have been a race traitor.
But, it was her time to tell a tale of blessings and pain, and humanity. "Look at the ear of the persons next to you". It's funny, but when you really really examine someone's ear, you don't leave with an opinion of anything but a shape and size. You do not see a religion, race, wealth or poverty. You just see a shape. "Now breathe each other's air". In that hot musty room, in a dream that felt so right, I got it: we are all connected. Suddenly, my heart danced in peace as every question was answered. Race is a greater deception than the moon's appearance to give off light. But what is real is one big energy that flows in and out of hearts and lungs. It is that stuff God used to make us in his likeness. So when the time came for us to look one another in the eye and say, "I love you", the task became a good feeling....
The sermon ended. The beautiful blonde, the beautiful Pastor and his beautiful Asian partner gave one another long hugs....
I woke up from the dream and remembered the event really happened last year while on a visit to San Francisco and Glide Memorial church. Wow. The blonde was the Actress Sharon Stone....
Remember how I noted that both Hilary Clinton and George W. Bush are United Methodists? Well, let's add that Sharon Stone preaches in United Methodist churches, sounding like Faith Hill...
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