July 28, 2011
We had a small, intimate ceremony. My father walked my bride down the aisle:
And mom fixed Vicky's hair.
Then my father performed the service, incorporating into it, cleverly and magnificently, themes from my favorites of the sermons he preached long ago. He worked several weeks on this ceremony, talking to us often about our ideas and his.
One theme we asked to be included was the story of Ruth. He had preached about it many times.
This is from my father's notes he wrote for our marriage ceremony:
"A woman named Naomi (aside: my mother's real name was Naomi Jeanne, but she always went by Jeanne) has a husband and two sons. Due to a famine in their home country, the family moved to a new country and there the two sons marry. While in this foreign country, Naomi's husband and two sons die and leave the three women to fend for themselves.
For some reasons it is not possible for Naomi to travel back to her own country, so she advises her two daughters-in-law to leave her and go back home to their own country so they can have a decent life. One does. The other, Ruth, cannot leave her mother-in-law in a foreign country, because she loves her so much."
Naomi still advises Ruth to go, but Ruth replies:
Entreat me not to leave thee
Or to return from following after thee
For whither thou goest I will go;
and where thou lodgest I will lodge.
Thy people shall be my people
And they God will be my God
Where thy diest, I will die
And there I will be buried."
They are the most beautiful lines in the bible, which despite how the Bible has been distorted into being a book of rules for how some people can feel superior to others, was actually a book of love.
The other story my father talked about in his sermons was the parable of the Prodigal son. It was such a feature of his beliefs and sermons that we all enjoyed kidding him about it, and he enjoyed the ribbing.
But I wanted to hear it one more time, on this the last time he would ever do anything official as a minister.
So he read it. And managed to integrate it into our wedding ceremony.
And my mother sang, as she had sung so often during my childhood. She sang without accompaniment. She sang "Love is a many splendored thing."
Then my father asked us to talk about our children and grandchildren, but before we did he relayed the following story. As a child, I remember when he preached the church will be full because he didn't lecture anybody--he told stories that reflected the love that the Bible had in it. Here is the story:
An older man going a lone highway
Came at the evening cold and gray
To a chasm, deep and wide
Through was flowing a sullen tide.
The brave man crossed in the twilight dim
The sullen stream had no fears for him
But he turned when safe on the other side
And built a bridge to span the tide.
"Old man" said a pilgrim near
"You are wasting your strength building here.
Your journey will end with the ending day
You never again will pass this way.
You have passed the chasm deep and wide
Why build a bridge on the other side?"
The builder then lifted up his head
"Good friend, in the path I have come," he said
"There followeth after me today
My children and grandchildren who must pass this way
This chasm that has been naught to me
To them may a pitfall be
they too must cross in the twilight dim
Good friend, I am building the bridge for them."
And this was his bridge for us to bring our children and grandchildren into the ceremony. If that isn't creative!
Some other highlights of his wedding service was a poem by Cicero:
"There iis no place more delightful than spending an evening
at the fireside with the person you love.
And, then, as if he could see 9 years into the future the life challenges that Vicky and I are facing together, he said:
"Because you are human, there may come a time when your love for each other will be tested, maybe because of sickness........But when and if this testing time comes, it might help to think of the advice of someone who wrote this and admonishes you to
Be like the bird
That, pausing in her flight
On boughs too slight
Feels them give way beneath her
And yet she sings
Knowing that she has wings.
If there was ever a time in our marriage that we need to heed this advice it is now: the bough is slight, but we know we have wings.
And then we were married.
And then it was time to sign the paperwork:
We had a wedding cake:
Then, my parents, exhausted, took a nap while we waited in the lobby of the assisted care facility (actually we had some music so danced, much to the delight of the other residents who walked through).
Then we all went out to dinner at Serrano's.
Two married couples! All of us were now officially Graybills.
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