Married Life

For my first post, I figured I'd share the readings we chose for our wedding.

The first reading, selected by Steve, was written by Madeleine L'Engle in The Irrational Season.

But ultimately there comes a moment when a decision must be made. Ultimately two people who love each other must ask themselves how much they hope for as their love grows and deepens, and how much risk they are willing to take…It is indeed a fearful gamble…Because it is the nature of love to create, a marriage itself is something which has to be created, so that, together we become a new creature.

To marry is the biggest risk in human relations that a person can take…If we commit ourselves to one person for life this is not, as many people think, a rejection of freedom; rather it demands the courage to move into all the risks of freedom, and the risk of love which is permanent; into that love which is not possession, but participation…It takes a lifetime to learn another person…When love is not possession, but participation, then it is part of that co-creation which is our human calling, and which implies such risk that it is often rejected.

I chose words of Rumi, the 13th Century Sufi Mystic.

“But, listen to me for one moment, quit being sad. Hear blessings dropping their blossoms around you. Be melting snow, wash yourself of yourself. Dry your eyes, look again at love with love."

"The way you make love is the way God will be with you.”

“May these nuptials be blessed for us,
may this marriage be blessed for us,
May it be ever like milk and sugar,
this marriage like wine and halvah.
May this marriage be blessed with leaves and fruits like the date tree;
May this marriage be laughing forever, today, tomorrow,
like the hours of paradise.
May this marriage be the sign of compassion
and the approval of happiness here and hereafter;
May this marriage be fair of fame, fair of face
and fair of omen as the moon in the azure sky.
I have fallen silent…
for words cannot describe how the spirit has mingled with this marriage.”

So on we go into married life. The sun has shone on us for 4 straight days, with many more to come...

Elise