"On your wedding day..."

"For my wedding, I don't want violins
Or sentimental songs about thick and thin
I want a moment of silence and a moment of prayer
For the love we'll need to make it in the world out there

To want what I have
To take what I'm given with grace
For this I pray
On my wedding day
On my wedding day..."

Don Henley
"For My Wedding"

On Saturday, my dear friend Todd will marry.   Anyone who knows Todd, knows the face of love.  Anyone who knows Todd, knows what the "office of husband" looks like....what the office of husband lives, speaks, walks, and laughs like.  Todd was married for decades to his sweetheart, Debbie, the mother of their remarkable daughters, and his best friend.  When Todd was widowed three years ago, I never sensed any interruption to his husbandhood. He has been a gentle friend, a compassionate neighbor, a devoted father.   He has remained faithful, kind, tender, honest, pure, good, funny, loving...he listens with his heart.

To think that God has blessed Todd with another great love in his life is to know that "God is Love" and that He wants great good for each of us. 

Joseph Campbell once said,

"Marriage is not a simple love affair, it's an ordeal,
and the ordeal is the sacrifice of ego to a relationship
in which two have become one." 

Knowing Todd, I am not surprised that he would embrace any opportunity he could to sacrifice his ego to a relationship where selflessness and generosity are the demands of each day. 

I wrote the following post three years ago when another loved friend married.  I went back to it today as I prayed a prayer of thanksgiving and celebration for my friend Todd and his bride.  It still rings true for me.  I send it out across the plains, the prairie, the desert...I send it out on the winds of love and friendship...I send it out to Todd and Pam...and their children.  May the Lord bless you and keep you.  Always,

Kate

"May Christ, Truth, be present at every bridal altar
to turn the water into wine and to give to
human life an inspiration by which man's spiritual
and eternal existence may be discerned.
- Mary Baker Eddy

Someone I care for dearly is being married this weekend.  This has inspired me to revisit the above statement from the Chapter "Marriage" in Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, and ponder its message, not only in reference to their marriage, but to all marriages...including my own.

At a time when reality television offers us a peek into the best and the worst of weddings through programming as sweet as TLC's A Wedding Story, to the most uncharitable kind of voyeurism through the lens of Lifetime's Bridezilla, this statement provides a spiritual grounding that brings me peace as I ponder this step for any couple.

Eddy's prayer (and I like to think of this statement as a prayer) asks that Christ be present at every bridal altar...from simple vows taken and given in a silent chapel to the elaborate drama of a hollywood gala with helicopters circling...from one performed in the dust of an African village to one officiated in a Scottish castle...from a first marriage with bride and groom having dated only eachother since middle school to the fourth marriage of an octogenarian who met her beloved while in a wheelchair aerobics class....each and every bridal altar deserves the benediction of Christ, Truth's presence turning the water into wine.  Turning that which refreshes hope and celebrates the good in all that has gone before, inspiring and givng each one deep and profound opportunities today for "growth in grace....patience, meekness, love and good deeds"...for being ripened and matured through love's great desire to live "with another" in communion and cooperation as husband and wife.  

This statement has caused me, this week, to think about what makes every bridal altar so deserving of this prayer....and my prayer has led me to one word....hope.   It takes remarkable hope to approach the bridal altar...hope that self can be subdued by love, hope that grace will reign in our hearts and  homes, hope that our lives will be an inspiration of hope to others who may feel gun-shy or weary....who may have given up dreams or are protecting tender hearts from possible hurt. 

So today I am celebrating hope with dear ones....the children who hope their parents have found another "one true love", parents who pray their daughters and sons will be cherished and supported in their dreams and desires, friends and families who hope their loved ones will be in love "forever and ever, amen" as Randy Travis sings.

One of my favorite lyricists, Don Henley, sings his prayer in the wedding song, "For my Wedding" that was written for his own marriage.  This song speaks to the hope that I pray we all bring to the altar...it has been my prayer each day since the first time I heard it on the radio a few years ago:

To want what I have
To take what I'm given with grace
For this I pray
On my wedding day

For my wedding, I don't want violins
Or sentimental songs about thick and thin
I want a moment of silence and a moment of prayer
For the love we'll need to make it in the world out there

To want what I have
To take what I'm given with grace
For this I pray
On my wedding day
On my wedding day

I dream, and my dreams are all glory and light
That's what I've wanted for my life
And if it hasn't always been that way
Well, I can dream and I can pray
On my wedding day

So what makes us any different from all the others
Who have tried and failed before us
Maybe nothing, maybe nothing at all
But I pray we're the lucky ones; I pray we never fall

To want what we have
To take what we're given with grace
For these things I pray
On my wedding day
On my wedding day

Dearest ones, on your wedding day, when you are making a "sanctuary of your heart"  I pray you are blessed with many things...great love, profound kindness, deep faith, persistent patience, abiding tenderness...but most of all...hope...for this I pray...on your wedding day.

with all my love,

K