A Wedding

Richard and Michaela 

August 8, 2015

So while it may have taken too long, we have finally arrived here today to celebrate a wedding.

If you wish, please bow your heads and join me in a prayer of collection to begin the ceremony.

Opening prayer

Heavenly Father, we invite you to be present with us today as witness the marriage of Richard and Michaela. Thank you for the safe travel of all who have come from afar to join this celebration and we also give you thanks for this grand and beautiful day and this grand and beautiful place. Bless us all with your presence and your love, not just for this day but for all days. Amen

On behalf of Richard and Michaela, I would like to welcome of you have made the effort to travel here to be a part of this celebration. The presence of each and every one of you is deeply appreciated. We would like to pay particular thanks to some very special guests who very appropriately here to witness the joining of Richard and Michaela in marriage.

First, I would like to acknowledge Michaela’s grandmother and this lady here, my mother, Richard’s grandmother Lois. Thank you for all that you have always done for us. From you, through us, to them the line will remain unbroken.

Next I would like to acknowledge Richard’s Aunt and Uncle, Dale and Renie Ludwig who have traveled from Alaska to be here. 13 years ago, Lori and I privileged to fly to Anchorage to witness the wedding of their daughter Anna. Thank you for being here to return the favor with your presence.

There are 2 other couples I would like to call special attention to now because if they had not been part of the lives of Lori and me 3 decades ago we would not be here today.

Kathy and Sandy and Paul and Scott.

So why are we are here today? Of course the answer is we are here to witness you two exchange vows and become husband and wife. It is you two who are going to be doing the important work. We are just here to watch and cheer you on.

The next question is, why should you marry each other?

Michaela, look at Richard. Do you see that look he has right now? Lori and I never saw that look on his face before he met you and we see on it him whenever you are around.

Richard, look at Michaela. Do you see that look? Lori and I never see that look her face unless you are around. I bet if I ask John and Jody they would agree that Michaela never looked like this before she met you.

The love, the commitment, the desire, the devotion and passion that look represents is why you are here today. You should plan to spend the rest of your life with the person who puts that look on your face. The Irish have an understanding of what this means. The term they use to describe what you are for each other is Anam Cara – soul friend.

The late Irish priest, spiritualist and poet John O’Donohue says this about Anam Cara

“In everyone's life, there is great need for an anam cara, a soul friend. In this love, you are understood as you are without mask or pretension. The superficial and functional lies and half-truths of social acquaintance fall away, you can be as you really are. Love allows understanding to dawn, and understanding is precious. Where you are understood, you are at home. Understanding nourishes belonging. When you really feel understood, you feel free to release yourself into the trust and shelter of the other person's soul. This recognition is described in a beautiful line from Pablo Neruda: "You are like nobody since I love you." This art of love discloses the special and sacred identity of the other person. Love is the only light that can truly read the secret signature of the other person's individuality and soul. Love alone is literate in the world of origin; it can decipher identity and destiny.”

So what is marriage? Why should any couple choose to get married? You have already proven you can establish a mutually beneficial, committed and genuine union outside marriage. You have experienced the ups and down, the goods and bads, time of sorrow and times of joy. So what possible difference can it make just to sign a piece of paper and make it legal?

The truth is we are not here because you need to get your marriage license signed. A wedding is more than just a legal event. Your license is really just a contract but marriage is more than a contract, it is a covenant.

I have to be aware of the fact there are a number of lawyers in the family so I am going to have to pick my next words carefully otherwise the judge just might have to stand up and correct me as I talk about the difference between a contract and a covenant.

A contract is very simple. It requires the completion of a promise and consideration. Without either element, there is no contract. If either party fails to hold up their end of the agreement, the contract is broken and ceases to exist.

A covenant is very different. In a covenant, you make a very different kind of agreement in which each of you promise to fulfill your part regardless of whether or not the other one keeps their part. A convent can endure forever as long as one of you keeps to the bargain. Believe me there are times in every marriage there can be times one of you will have to keep to the bargain until the other one is ready to do their part again. The commitment which defines the covenant will sustain you during the down times and bring you joy in the up times.

Anyone who has been married more than seconds will swear to the truth of this observation:

Every friendship travels at some time through the black valley of despair. This tests every aspect of your affection. You lose the attraction and the magic. Your sense of each other darkens and your presence is sore. If you can come through this time, it can purify with your love, and falsity and need will fall away. It will bring you onto new ground where affection can grow again.

So there is yet another reason to be get married. The vows you exchange today will bind you together in front of all of us and what is witnessed is made strong through the commitment of the witnesses. We are here for you. We believe in your relationship and we are committed to helping you make your marriage a success. Let the example of the strong marriages enjoyed by your friends and family encourage you and give you examples of sustain your relationship from this day on.

You are bringing the power of community into your relationship and we have a stake in your marriage. What does that mean? It is very simple. When a couple is married, they join and become part of the foundation of our society. The fact that you two are getting married means something very instinctual.

With your marriage comes a promise for the future. It means that we as a people have a chance to go on, to continue to the next generation. In a way, your marriage completes us and that is why we are here, to become part of the completion.






Vows

This business about making vows is a very serious business. Throughout human history, exchanging vows has been the foundation of our society. If we can’t make a promise and then keep the promise, everything will fall apart.

Over time some elaborate rituals evolved around exchanging vows, or to put it another way, swearing an oath of commitment.

From Irish culture comes a very beautiful understanding of what it means to swear an oath.

They believed if you swore your oath into water, the water would hear but then water would flow away and your words would be lost. If you swore your oath into the sand, the sand would hear but then over time the sand would wash away and, again, your words would be lost. If you swear your oath into the air, the air would hear but then your words would be blown away with the wind. Your words, of course, would be lost.

There is hope, another way of making your vows. If you swear to each other with a stone as your witness, the stone will hear and remember your words not just for today but for period of time longer than the measure of your lives so long as you protect the stone from harm through your devotion to each other.

Here is what is called an oathing stone. It is made of granite that is older than a million generation of humans. In every way that we can understand such things, this stone is eternal and it will remember what you say to each other today forever. What happens here today will never be undone because what the stone hears will never be forgotten.

^^^ Vows.






Post vow sharing

Every parent hopes that if their children should marry that they would find someone worthy of them. When I say that, some old stereotypes come to mind, right? I am sure John and Jody were concerned that Michaela would find someone to marry who was tall, handsome, kind, intelligent and treated her like a princess. In short they were looking for someone good enough for her.

Of course, Lori and I wanted Richard to find someone who was beautiful, smart, devoted to him and worshipped the ground he walked him. Like John and Jody, we wanted to someone good enough for him.

I am not talking about those kind of things, however, I talking about a very different measurement of what it means to be worthy of each other. True worth that will nourish a lifelong relationship is not measured by what each of you have but by what you are willing to give away. It is really a very simple concept but it takes a lifetime of practice to get right.

If you make the commitment to always put the other person first in every significant way every day, your marriage will grow into something that will be worthy of the admiration of others. Make a habit of doing little things that can point to a bigger truth. When you set the table, set the other ones place first. When you cook a meal, invite the other to fill their plate first. Whoever is first should hold the door open for the other. That way it comes time to talk about big decisions like buying a another house or having children you will already be used to considering how what one of you might do might impact the other.

Being worthy has little to do with physical or tangible things but it has everything to with who you are on the inside.

John O’Donohue says this.

“One of the tasks of true friendship is to listen compassionately and creatively to the hidden silences. Often secrets are not revealed in words, they lie concealed in the silence between the words or in the depth of what is unsayable between two people.”

To be worthy of one another means you have the ability to know the heart of the other. Know this. Love is not a feeling or state of mind. Love is an action, it requires commitment, and to love is to do something for the benefit of another and not yourself.

There is a benefit. Love allows understanding to dawn, and understanding is precious. Where you are understood, you are at home. Understanding nourishes belonging. When you really feel understood, you feel free to release yourself into the trust and shelter of the other person's soul.

This kind of love requires a constant commitment, a daily effort to feed the understanding which nourishes our belonging together. This is the true measure of worth. We all together ask this of you, be worthy of another.






The blessing:

May love awaken in your life and be in the night of your heart;

May love always be like the dawn breaking within you;

May there no longer be anonymity between, but may you enjoy always intimacy;

May where before there was fear, now there only be courage;

May where once your life there was awkwardness, now there will be a rhythm of grace and gracefulness;

May where before you used to be jagged, now you are elegant and in rhythm with yourself;

May when love awakens in your life, it is like a rebirth, a new beginning, and may this happen every day;

May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder;

May all that is unlived in you blossom into a future graced with love;

May you each always be a friend who is a loved one who awakens your life in order to free the wild possibilities within each of you;

And may, at the end of your days, you be able to say to one another, “I am glad we did and not I wish we had.”






Closing Prayer

Richard, you already know this prayer. Your mother and I prayed it with you and Brian most every night of your childhoods. It seems fitting to pray it again today as your mother and I witness you begin a new chapter of your life as a husband to Michaela.



Lord, you taught us to share this blessing with one another and we ask you permission to share it again today.

We pray,

The LORD bless you and keep you!

The LORD let his face shine upon you, and be gracious to you!

The LORD look upon you kindly and give you peace!



Father, we ask you to also:

Bless us and keep us!

Let your face shine upon us and be gracious to us.

Look upon us kindly and give us your peace.



Amen