I Take You

When I was a freshly-minted, just out of seminary pastor, my mentor sat down with me to go over what he felt was a modernized wedding ceremony.  Let me say this clearly: it was the 1980s and there was a lot of discussion everywhere about hidden and explicit patriarchy.  We never used the changes without talking to the bride and groom about it first and if they were dead set on a "traditional" service we did it.  I talked about discarding "Dearly Beloved" in my last post.  We encouraged them to have both families give their blessing to the marriage rather than having the bride's father "give her away" like a possession.  And in the vows we encouraged them to replace "I take you to be my husband/wife" with "I give myself to you to be your wife/husband."

The reasoning behind it was sound.  The idea is that you are not taking the other person as a possession, but giving yourself to them in relationship.  It reflects the self-giving love that promises itself unconditionally.  That's important in marriage because, let's face it, we all have times when it's only our partner's commitment to the relationship that keeps it together.  That time may last only a second or two or it may last a year or two, but every marriage has them.  And most brides and grooms agreed with us on that.  My husband and I used that form when we married.

But recently I came across a poem that made me rethink this.  It is called "The Wedding Vow" by Sharon Olds and because I do not have rights to it, I refer you to it below for the entire poem.  It's also found by Googling Sharon Olds poems.  Please look it up and read it.  It ends:

... And then it was time

to speak -he was offering me, no matter

what, his life. That is all I had to

do, that evening, to accept the gift

I had longed for, - to say I had accepted it,

as if being asked if I breathe. Do I take?

I do. I take as he takes - we have been

practicing this. Do you bear this pleasure? I do. *

In marriage we do not just give ourselves.  We have to accept the gift of the other person, to accept them, to welcome them into our lives, our beings, and, yes, to take them as they are .  It is a powerful thing to recognize that another is publicly offering their life to us, and to acknowledge publicly that this one is our dearly beloved.  For better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health; to forge between us something that cannot exist without both of us.  

On June 3 my dearly beloved and I will celebrate 36 years of holding each other's hearts and lives in our hands.  How grateful I am for him!  What amazing, gracious love he has offered me.  How glad I am that I was smart enough to accept it, to receive it, to bear it  as we have shared the journey through life together.

*"The Wedding Vow" by Sharon Olds from The UnsweptRoom. © Alfred A. Knopf, 2003.

Dearly Beloved

When I was a newly-minted, fresh out of seminary pastor, and about to do my first wedding with my mentor, he went over some of the changes he had made to the traditional service over his time in ministry.  The first one was that he had changed the greeting from "Dearly Beloved" to "Friends in Christ".  "Nobody uses that kind of language anymore," he argued.  "My wife and I don't ever call each other 'Beloved'."  He was younger then than I am now.  And while I adapted his changed greeting for a long time, I have come to believe that this was one of the few things he was wrong about.  For "beloved" is an important term, a useful styling, an expression of a relationship that goes far beyond friendship.

Beloved - the people whose presence brings you to tears of joy. 
Beloved - the people you seldom see, but who hold your heart in theirs.
Beloved - the people you might not hear from but once a year, yet you are so glad to get that Christmas letter.
Beloved - the people with whom you worship, sing, cook, pray, eat on a regular basis.

These are more than friends.  They are sometimes closer than family.   Blood is thicker than water, but love is thicker than blood.  There is a bond of love forged hard as steel - you forgive their foibles even if you can't laugh at them. You trust them with your heart, your hopes, your pain, your fears. 

Sometimes we call someone a friend when they're actually more of an acquaintance than a friend.  But a true friend is beloved.  They are there for the long haul and you are there for them.  When you think of them you feel that "ping" in your heart.  What matters to them matters to you, even when it doesn't matter to you.  They are those friendships that exist out of time - the ones where even if you haven't seen, talked with, or written to each other for years, when you get together you know each other as if you had been together just yesterday.  You listen deeply to each other.

They are your dearly beloved.

One can only hope that your life partner falls into that group.  It makes life a whole lot easier if they do, at least I suppose so, because I cannot imagine being married to someone I did not love dearly. 
More on that next time.

Benediction: Inviting Mourning

Well.  It has been quite a year this last month. 

When I began Lent this year I thought that I was going to practice a Lenten discipline of mourning.  I suspected I needed it because when I talked about the possibility my voice caught and cracked and I had to gulp to finish my sentence.

There's been a lot to mourn lately.  The world and the World are in terrible shape.  Even before the reality of COVID-19 hit us, I've had a lot of losses this last year and now we are in the process of selling our house and leaving our current community.  I have particularly been mourning the reality of leaving our church family, a group of people I love dearly.

But I didn't practice mourning, at least not in any tangible, meaningful way, and it has caught up with me. My eyes start to leak at odd times and places.  I welcome the fact that I can't go out into the world.  I'm not depressed.  I've been depressed and I know what that looks and feels like.  But I am sad and I need to mourn.

Mourning is discouraged in our culture.  We are encouraged to wear yellow and pink to funerals, to celebrate the life of the departed.  Poems are read that tell us not to be sad because the deceased are so much better off now.  We're told we have to remember that things are only going to get better. 

But we NEED to mourn.  We need to acknowledge loss and pain, we need to learn from them and we need to remember that they are part of what motivates us to grow, to change when appropriate.  Mourning and grief are natural consequences of loving.  We only mourn what we have loved and lost.  And when we DON'T mourn it builds up inside of us.  It can certainly become depression.  I believe it can make us physically ill.  I know it tries to self-medicate in all kinds of unhealthy ways.  Sometimes it leaks out in tears or explodes in emotion that looks like anger to those on the receiving end. 

The worst is when religious people tell you that mourning is a lack of faith.  Listen, when his friend Lazarus died Jesus wept.  If it wasn't a sign of a lack of faith in Jesus, it surely isn't a lack of faith for you!

In these days of uncertainty and discouragement, I know it's tempting and perhaps even necessary to distract ourselves, to watch comedies and bake yummy things and play games.  No judgement.  But don't feel like you have to be happy.  Let yourself feel sadness.  Let yourself mourn.  Read some of the psalms of lament.  They will speak for you and will not leave you in a pit of despair.  Listen to Beethoven  it will knock your feet out from underneath you and then pick you up and set you firmly on the ground.  (I can never remember, is Ode to Joy in the 8th Symphony?  That'll do it for you!).  Watch a movie that you know will make you cry but will leave you feeling filled at the end.  Places in the Heart and What Dreams May Come always do that for me. 

Finally, talk with someone who will honor your mourning and who will not leave you there indefinitely.  Someone who loves you enough to ask if you might need professional help; medication, therapy, or both.  It's okay.