My wedding day was a birth-day! A deep peace filled my
entire being. It was a peace that up until that day I had only
momentarily glimpsed and urgently longed for. This peace continues at the
heart of my relationship with my wife. The only thing similar to the
transforming gift of peace that so radically filled my being on my wedding
day was the peace that I experienced when each of my sons were born.
The birth celebrated on my wedding day was preceded by a
"conception," an arrival of love into my life that invited me
into what I call a "graced state." The graced state is the
mystery, magic, enchantment, and terror of falling in love. The
transforming journey from falling in love to new birth, covering glorious
and frightening terrain in between, is my story, and it is also the story
of every person who has ever fallen in love. Having the opportunity to
listen to couples name the process of how love has ripened them and then
assisting them in creating a wedding ritual containing the core of this
experience is what I do as a wedding minister. It is what I love most
about being a married Roman Catholic priest.
"The artist is a servant who is
willing to be a birthgiver," writer Madeline L'Engle tells us in
Walking on Water: Reflections on Faith and Art. "I believe that each
work of art, whether it is a work of great genius, or something very
small, comes to the artist and says, 'Here I am. Enflesh me. Give birth to
me.' And the artist either says, 'My soul doth magnify the Lord,' and
willingly becomes the bearer of the work, or refuses." |
