Wonder-full Wedding

My niece got married on Sunday.  It was a mist-filled, wonder-full day.  The wedding took place in a garden on the North Shore of Massachusetts, so the weather was a concern.  With temperatures 20 degrees lower than normal and intermittent rain throughout the weekend, the outdoor ceremony was in doubt.  But the father of the bride said "No.  My daughter wanted a garden wedding, and that's what she's going to have."  And so she did.  It was beautiful.  Just beautiful.

I put together the readings for the ceremony.  A pastor-relative and I read the selections from literature and the Bible.  We've done readings together before and do well together.  I chose selections from Robert Louis Stevenson, Maya Angelou, Thomas a Kempis, George Eliot, the Bible, and Pablo Neruda. His Sonnet LXIX was my favorite of all:

Maybe nothingness is to be without your presence, 

without you moving, slicing the noon
like a blue flower, without you walking
later through the fog and the cobbles,
without the light you carry in your hand,
golden, which maybe others will not see,

which maybe no one knew was growing 

like the red beginnings of a rose.

In short, without your presence:  without your coming

suddenly, incitingly, to know my life,

gust of a rosebush wheat of wind:

since then I am because you are,

since then you are, I am, we are,

and through love I will be, you will be, we'll be.

 

 

Old Time and New Beginnings

Interesting twist on yesterday's post: I found a different version of the hymn in my church hymnal. It adds a stanza and makes the first stanza a question instead of a statement. Makes for an entirely different reading, too, don't you think? And, ironically, in the midst of my "new beginning" ponderings, I attended a wedding this evening between two late septuagenarians (mother of two friends). They've only known each other a month, barely, but figured they needed to "gather their rosebuds while they may, Old Time is still a-flyin'." It was a lovely, funny wedding, full of music and laughter. I wish them all the best.

1
Is this a day of new beginnings,
Time to remember and move on,
Time too believe what love is bringing,
Laying to rest the pain that’s gone?

2
How can the seasons of a planet
Mindlessly spinning round its sun
With just a human name and number
Say that some new thing has begun?

3
Yet through the life and death of Jesus
Love’s mighty Spirit, now as then,
Can make for us a world of difference
As faith and hope are born again.

4
Then let us, with the Spirit’s daring,
Step from the past and leave behind
Its disappointment, guilt, and grieving,
Seeking new paths, and sure to find.

5
Christ is alive, and goes before us
To show and share what love can do.
This is a day of new beginnings;
Our God is making all things new.

Best of Friends tie the knot

The wedding I attending this afternoon at Riverside Farm in Pittsfield, VT was supposed to be outdoors, but the cool, brisk breeze forced the ceremony inside the barn. We were all glad, you can be sure of that, even though it was quite beautiful outside. None of us were wanting to sit for 45 minutes in the 50ish coolness of a late afternoon.

Once again, I found a few of my worlds colliding. My high school years, my college and early work years, and the mid years of my teaching tenure at my current school...all colliding in one space. It's a weird feeling to look around you and have different facets of your life flash before you...

And yet it was so much fun! More than a dozen former students were involved one way or another with the wedding, and at least four former colleagues were there to enjoy it all. My sister and three others provided the music for the ceremony, and instead of lighting the unity candle, the couple washed each other's feet. I thought that was such a special, meaningful thing for them to do. The tenderness of that act was so right.

These two have been friends since they were in grade school together, although they didn't start dating until after college. They always sat together in my classroom, I remember. You just never know where a friendship will take you!

I left sometime after 8, but the younger crowd was still going strong. Used to be I could keep up with the best of them. Not so true now! None the less, it was a beautiful day. I must say I enjoyed it enormously...