Mysteries Revisited: Marriage Two Years In (Part One)

Back in March, I posted a lengthy rumination on marriage (Thieves, Thieves, Tramps and Thieves: Part Two). The impetus for that post was the hullabaloo around Eliot Spitzer's infidelity and the wave of anti-marriage sentiment that echoed in every facet of public discourse. I mentioned then, and remember now, that it bothered me that "marriage" as an institution was so easily denigrated. How, when every avenue threatens to lead us astray, am I supposed to remain true to the commitment I made to my darling wife?

Today is the second anniversary of my marriage.

And my answer to that question: Faith.

Where's the Mystery?

We had our wedding service recorded but, until today, I hadn't listened to it. I was there, after all. I know what was said! But listening to the service—that sacred moment when my wife and I made a commitment to each other before God, our family and friends—I was struck (again) by the prescience of it.

It brought me back to the planning, to sitting with the good reverend and taking time to decide what our service would be like. I am very thankful for that time—and for the fact that Mandy and I had such a good mentor who presented us with such good options.

Which brings me to something I've observed in the two years since: Not many people take the time to really plan the service portion of their weddings. True, they deliberate over colors and dresses, tuxedoes and wedding favors, food and beverages (to open bar or not to open bar). But when it comes to the actual service portion, many couples do the bare minimum. Or, rather, they defer to their officiants and are left with something that doesn't necessarily reflect the spirit of the couple and where that spirit intersects with the sacred.

We have to say these things before we can all go eat.

I vividly remember planning our service. Our officiant gave us a folder full of services he had performed in the past and asked us to read through them and decide how we wanted ours to go. He also stressed that these were simply guidelines. In the end, he would do (within reason) whatever we wanted. What we wound up with was a cut and paste job of his best bits.

Now, that may not sound very "sacred," but let me explain.

Don't mistake my dislike of most wedding ceremonies for a dislike of the traditional. There is a reason that tradition is part of this event. Sacred rituals invoke the ever-present; they tap into the constant that is human experience in the face of God. Rituals are performed to bring us into that moment that is neither the past, present, nor future. Sacred time sits outside profane time. As such, sacred rites must be observed, even if they are traditional—and a bit boring.

What I have issue with is what I perceive as a failing in other couples' services: Do they really understand/respect the ritual? Do they know why these things are said? Or are they just going through the motions?

This is my beef with all modern ritual. Ritual divorced of the sacred is empty observance. For my money, this is why we now have a man-child epidemic in this country: American men never come of age because they have no sacred rite of passage to manhood. There is a big difference between getting a driver's license and being circumcised at the age of ten without anesthetic while having salt thrown in your eyes.

American marriage ceremonies have lost their sense of the sacred and have, more or less, become ancillary to the reception. One need only look at the time of the ceremony (20 to 30 minutes) in relation to the typical reception (hours).

Okay. So, Mandy and I knew that our service would, more or less, follow the tradition. We wanted that. But we also wanted it to reflect us. It just so happened that some of those best bits I mentioned above hit the right chords for us. In fact, the wife and I had similar reactions to the pieces that we decided to use.

Paramount among them was a bit about mystery:

Mystery is the very nature of life itself: the mystery of creation, the mystery of life-sustaining forces, the mystery of growth, the mystery of order and disorder, the mystery of love. And yet we are called to live in the midst of mystery, to enter into the process of life, of growth, of creation, of love.

I remember reading this particular passage and thinking, "That's it. That's got to be in the service." As I listened to the recording of our service, I was again struck by the power of these statements. Our minister opened with this rumination on the mystery of life and love—and what an opener it was! Certainly, no marriage that begins with these ideas can ever be brought low by the mysteries that test our very nature and faith?!

Even now, I marvel at the truth in these words. Look at how the placement of the phrases puts "order and disorder" next to "the mystery of love." Love is the medium through which we mediate between order and chaos—without it, when order descends into disorder, the typical reaction is despair. Two years in, I can say that the forces of disorder, of chaos, have been ever present in our lives. Through our commitment to each other, love has kept us from the brink of despair.

We are called to live in the midst of mystery.

Thinking back over the last two years of my marriage, I must kneel before the truth of that statement and both rail against the mystery and be thankful for it!

So, in the end, the time and energy that Mandy and I put into our service was well worth it.

Promises, Promises

Okay, so anyone who attended our wedding likely remembers two things from the recitation of our personal promises:

1. Mine were really long.
2. Mandy promised to laugh at me.

Listening again, I'm glad to know that we were both able to provoke laughter from those in attendance. This speaks volumes about who we are as a couple.

I am also thankful for the fact that as time carries us away from that moment it feels no less present.

Listening to my darling wife recite her vows still conjures a wealth of happy tears.

Going back to that planning, I recall trying to trim down my vows. I knew they were long. I treated the writing of them like I treat writing poetry—whatever comes out in the process of consulting the muses is what I'm left with, be it short and sweet or long and complicated. When it comes to writing, I trust to my instincts and the process of revision. I took that famous Corinthians passage and ruminated on it through turns of phrasing.

The results were more than two pages long.

Over the course of several months I trimmed them down to something I could fit in my tuxedo jacket and still read without having to squint. I didn't have to listen to the service again to remember the moment when I flipped my page over and heard mumbles from the crowd. But it was my wedding and I was going to say what I wanted to say.

Both the wife and I intended—for our first anniversary—to have those vows framed. We haven't done that yet. Listening to them again reminds me that we need to have that done.

But…

My wife and I have, over the past two years, been to several weddings, and it's hard not to draw comparisons. Some chose to write personal promises; others stuck to the script. For many, that script was all that held the ceremony together and I've found myself wondering what these couples really think is the point behind it all.

Now, two years after my own vows were delivered, I don't have any doubt at all about the point of them.