Readings
Mystic Flames
Constance, the empress of Rome, remarked that when St. Francis and St. Clara were in each other’s company, the spark between them glowed so bright that the convent and surrounding wood appear to be on fire. So bright that the folk of Assisi rushed to quench the flames.
"How I envy the folk of Assisi who saw those mystic flames,” Empress Constance would say.
Well, how lucky each of us are today to witness the glowing spark here between _____ and ______.
A Little Something
Love is the greatest gift that we can offer to one another. That is what makes marriage so very special, and a cause for joy and celebration for all of us who have come here today to share in this event. It is my personal hope and prayer that those of you who have already taken the vows of marriage will witness the love of these two people, and as you listen to them share their vows, perhaps it will strengthen for you the memory of your happy day, and remind you of the meaning of the vows you yourselves once took. Perhaps it will even strengthen just a little bit the bond of love that has been growing between you, and if any of this should happen, it would certainly be the greatest gift that _____ and ______ could offer all of us on their wedding day.
Rilke’s letter to a young poet #7 It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. That is why young people, who are beginners in everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered around their solitary, anxious, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning-time is always a long, secluded time, and therefore loving, for a long time ahead and far on into life, is: solitude, a heightened and deepened kind of aloneness for the person who loves. Loving does not at first mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person (for what would a union be of two people who are unclarified, unfinished and still incoherent?) It is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world in himself for the sake of another person; it is a great, demanding claim on him. Something that chooses him and calls him to vast distances. Only in this sense, as the task of working on themselves (“to hearken and to hammer day and night”), may young people use the love that is given to them. Merging and surrendering and every kind of communion is not for them (who must still, for a long, long time, save and gather themselves); it is the ultimate, is perhaps that for which human lives are as yet barely large enough.
Lotus Flower
_____ and ____, the relationship that you have nourished together stands for love that will blossom and grow with each passing day. It is very appropriate that you have chosen the lotus as the theme of your wedding for a lotus flower has qualities that mirror your relationship.
The lotus flower grows out of the mud and muck into a beautiful and inspiring blossom. The petals of a lotus are actually very strong and can withstand heavy weather.
Your relationship has weathered many challenges - including distance and time – that most relationships wouldn’t survive. Your belief in each other and dedication to your future through all of your challenges makes this day that much sweeter for the two of you and an awe inspiring miracle to those who have witnessed what you have overcome together.
Word Play (http://www.squidoo.com/weddingceremonyhumorousreadings)
Congratulations on the termination of your isolation and may I express an appreciation of your determination to end the desperation and frustration which has caused you so much consternation in giving you the inspiration to make a combination to bring an accumulation to the population.
Mark Twain to Olivia Langdon
This...will be the mightiest day in the history of our lives, the holiest, & the most generous toward us both -- for it makes of two fractional lives a whole; it gives to two purposeless lives a work, & doubles the strength of each whereby to perform it; it gives to two questioning natures a reason for living, & something to live for; it will give a new gladness to the sunshine, a new fragrance to the flowers, a new beauty to the earth, a new mystery to life; & it will give a new revelation to love, a new depth to sorrow, a new impulse to worship. In that day the scales will fall from our eyes & we shall look upon a new world.
- letter to Olivia Langdon, 8 September 1869
True Love (Author Unknown)
True love is a sacred flame that burns eternally,
And none can dim its special glow or change its destiny
True love speaks in tender tones and hears with gentle ear,
True love gives with open heart and true love conquers fear.
True love makes no harsh demands it neither rules nor binds.
True love holds with gentle hands the hearts that it entwines.
Your Laughter by Pablo Neruda
Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.
Do not take away the rose,
the lance flower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.
My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.
Next to the sea in the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.
Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,
but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.
Sonnet 17 by Pablo Neruda
I don’t love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.
He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven by William Butler Yeats
Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
the blue and the dim and the dark cloths
of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
by Roy Croft
I love you
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.
I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.
I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can't help
Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find
I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern
But a temple.
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.
I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good.
And more than any fate
Could have done
To make me happy.
You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.
Perhaps that is what
Being a friend means,
After all.
I Like You
a children’s book by Sandol Stoddard Warburg
I like you and I know why.
I like you because you are a good person to like.
I like you because when I tell you something special, you know it's
special
And you remember it a long, long time.
You say, Remember when you told me something special
And both of us remember
When I think something is important
you think it's important too
We have good ideas
When I say something funny, you laugh
I think I'm funny and you think I'm funny too
Hah-hah!
I like you because you know where I'm ticklish
And you don't tickle me there except just a little tiny bit sometimes
But if you do, then I know where to tickle you too
You know how to be silly
That's why I like you
Boy are you ever silly
I never met anybody sillier than me till I met you
I like you because you know when it's time to stop being silly
Maybe day after tomorrow
Maybe never
Too late, it's a quarter past silly
Sometimes we don't say a word
We snurkle under fences
We spy secret places
If I am a goofus on the roofus hollering my head off
You are one too
If I pretend I am drowning, you pretend you are saving me
If I am getting ready to pop a paper bag,
then you are getting ready to jump
HOORAY
That's because you really like me
You really like me, don't you
And I really like you back
And you like me back and I like you back
And that's the way we keep on going every day
Swami Omkarananada
Love has wisdom that can solve every problem. It possesses the great patience which waits until, drop by drop, an ocean is formed. Love is royal in dignity, brave in spirit, unbreakable in substance, and divine in nature. It does not complain, does not judge. It transforms everything that it touches. It rules everything to which it presents its own Light. It understands and yields only to conquer fully. Love has numberless resources and inexhaustible energies.
Diane Ackerman, A History of Love
Love. What a small word we use for an idea so immense and powerful it has altered the flow of history, calmed monsters, kindled works of art, cheered the forlorn, turned tough guys to mush, consoled the enslaved, driven strong women mad, glorified the humble, fueled national scandals, bankrupted robber barons, and made mincemeat of kings. How can love’s spaciousness be conveyed in the narrow confines of one syllable? Love is an ancient delirium, a desire older than civilization, with taproots stretching deep into dark and mysterious days…
The heart is a living museum. In each of its galleries, no matter how narrow or dimly lit, preserved forever like wondrous diatoms, are our moments of loving and being loved.
Why Marriage? (Author Unknown)
Because to the depths of me, I long to love one person,
With all my heart, my soul, my mind, my body...
Because I need a forever friend to trust with the intimacies of me,
Who won't hold them against me,
Who loves me when I'm unlikable,
Who sees the small child in me, and
Who looks for the divine potential of me...
Because I need to cuddle in the warmth of the night
With someone who thanks God for me,
With someone I feel blessed to hold.
The Key to Love
The key to love is understanding ...
The ability to comprehend not only the spoken word,
but also those unspoken gestures,
the little things that say so much by themselves.
The key to love is forgiveness....
to accept each other’s faults and pardon mistakes,
without forgetting, but with remembering
what you learn from them.
The key to love is sharing ...
Facing your good fortunes as well as the bad, together;
both conquering problems, forever searching for ways
to intensify your happiness.
The key to love is giving ...
without thought of return,
but with the hope of just a simple smile,
and by giving in but never giving up.
The key to love is respect ...
realizing that you are two separate people, with different ideas;
that you don't belong to each other,
that you belong with each other, and share a mutual bond.
The key to love is inside us all ...
It takes time and patience to unlock all the ingredients
that will take you to its threshold;
it is the continual learning process that demands a lot of work ... but the rewards are more than worth the effort ...
and that is the key to love.
Anon
Oh, My Love!
Oh my love!
How very like a rose you are,
My regal, fragrant, floral star;
I truly love you, love you, love!
Oh my love!
When in the sun’s reflecting hues You bask, no task may I refuse
Because I love you, love you, love!
Oh my love!
Should I, by chance, be severed free
Of senses made to smell and see,
I’d feel your nearness next to me
As one hand feels another darkly there
And presses to another as in prayer;
I’d know that feel of kinship’s care
As I now know this heart of mine
Shall ever love you, love!
Oh my love!
Should that axe of ages activate
To prematurely untogether all,
All aspirations must, like dreams, abate
Until horns of Michael call;
Yet, when two lives are merged, as we,
And each becomes the other’s me,
Then, servitude’s the highest free
And, in oneness, we shall be
Together everlasting!
Such a trite catastrophe
Could never mar our unity
Because my spirit loves the love of loving you!
Fenton Johnson
“But in love
something miraculous happens.
In loving someone,
we give them
an ideal against which
to measure themselves.
Living in the presence
of that ideal,
the beloved strives to fulfill
the lover’s expectations.
In this way,
Love makes of us
the bravest and best persons
that we are capable of being.”
Jean Marie Rilke
Understand, I’ll slip quietly
Away from the noisy crowd
When I see the pale
Stars rising, blooming over the oaks
I’ll pursue solitary pathways
Through the pale twilight meadows
With only this one dream,
You come too.
Shakespeare
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
e.e. cummings
I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart)
I am never without it (anywhere I go you go, my dear;
and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)
I fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)
I want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my rue)
And it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
And whatever a sun will always sing is you
Here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;
which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)
e.e. cummings
somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which I cannot
touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though I have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, I and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture compels me with the
colour of its countries, rendering death and forever with each breathing
(I do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands.
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe
Come live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield.
There will we sit upon the rocks
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melocious birds sing madrigals.
There will I make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider’d all with leaves of myrtle.
A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull,
Fair linèd slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold.
A belt of straw and ivy buds
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my Love.
Thy silver dishes for thy meat
As precious as the gods do eat,
Shall on an ivory table be
Prepared each day for thee and me.
The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my Love.
“My Luve” by Robert Burns
O my luve is like a red, red rose,
That`s newly sprung in June:
O my luve is like the melodie,
That`s sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a` the seas gang dry.
Till a` the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi` the sun;
And I will luve thee still my dear,
While the sands o` life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho` it were ten thousand mile
Eternity Of Your Love by Millette Addison
Your love is... an ocean,
Where sand meets the sea,
Waves of love rolling over me,
Your love comes to me,
As the tide comes to the shore,
Wanting and needing to embrace me more,
Your love is... the moon,
Shining across the shimmering sea,
Deep, wide, strong, and calm.
Always there to carry me.
Your love is... my shelter,
My compass, my true north,
Where ever I go, your love is guiding me forth,
Your love is.... the fresh ocean breeze,
Gently sweeping across my face,
Touching me from place to place,
Your love is...
The salty air I smell,
Clearing my thoughts and thinking,
Your love is...
The life preserver that keeps me from sinking,
When I go there to the sea,
I am not alone, for your love is with me,
I feel you all around,
The beauty, the wind, the mystery,
Your love engulfs me,
Takes my breath away,
Holds me in wind's arms,
When I close my eyes,
Dancing memories of your charms,
Never escape my deepest memory,
So if ever our souls part to say goodbye,
Meet me there, where the sea meets the sky,
Your love will forever be with me,
Where the sands touch the sea,
Our love lives on,
Our love flows back out into all eternity.
What is REAL? (from the Velveteen Rabbit children’s story)
“What is REAL?” asked the rabbit one day, when they were laying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real, you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry
"Go and look again at the roses,”[said the fox]. “You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."
The little prince went away, to look again at the roses.
"You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world."
And the roses were very much embarrassed.
"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you--the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered...; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.”
And he went back to meet the fox.
..."Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
...”It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."
...”Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose..."
Love Takes time. It needs a history
Of giving and receiving, laughing and crying …
Love never promises instant gratification,
Only ultimate fulfillment.
Love means believing in someone, in something.
It supposes a willingness to struggle,
To work, to suffer, and to rejoice.
Satisfaction and ultimate fulfillment are
by-products of dedicated love. They
belong to those who can reach
beyond themselves; to whom giving
is more important than receiving.
Love is doing everything you can to help
others build whatever dreams they have.
Love involves much careful and active
listening. It is doing whatever needs to
be done, and saying whatever will promote
the other’s happiness, security, and
well-being. Sometimes, love hurts.
Love is a constant journey to what others
need. It must be attentive, caring, and open,
both to what others say and to what
others cannot say …
Love says no with empathy and great compassion.
Love is firm, but when needed it must be tender.
When others have tried and failed, love is
the hand in yours in your moments of
discouragement and disappointment.
Love is reliable.
Love is a choice and commitment to others’
true and lasting happiness. It is dedicated
to growth and fulfillment. Love is
not selfish.
Love sometimes fails for lack of wisdom
or abundance of weakness, but it forgives,
knowing the intentions are good.
Love does not attach conditions … Genuine
love is always a free gift.
Love realizes and accepts that there will be
disagreements and disturbing emotions …
There may be times when miles lie between,
but love is a commitment. It believes,
and endures all things.
Love encourages freedom of self. Love shares
positive and negative reactions to warm
and cold feelings.
Love, intimate love, will never reject others.
It is the first to encourage and the last
to condemn.
Love is a commitment to growth, happiness
and fulfillment of one another.
“Love Is A Great Thing” by Thomas à Kempis
Love is a great thing; a great and thorough good.
By itself it makes that is heavy light; and it bears evenly all that is uneven.
It carries a burden which is no burden; it will not be kept back by anything low and mean
It desires to be free from all worldly affections, and not to be entangled by any outward prosperity, or by any adversity subdued.
Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of trouble, attempts what is above its strength, pleads no excuse of impossibility. It is therefore able to undertake all things, and it completes many things, and warrants them to take effect, where he who does not love would faint and lie down.
Though weary, it is not tired; though pressed it is not straitened
Though alarmed, it is not confounded; but as a living flame it forces itself upwards and securely passes through all.
Love is active and sincere, courageous, patient, faithful, prudent and strong.
Adaptation of Plato's Symposium
Love is our best friend, our helper, and the healer of the ills that cause unhappiness.
To understand the power of Love, we must understand that our original human nature was not like it is now, but different. Astrology has it that human beings each had two sets of arms, two sets of legs, and two faces looking in opposite directions. Man and a woman were once as one, called the children of the Moon.
The Gods divided these humans in half creating two parts of each desiring their other half. When they came together, they threw their arms about one another, entwined in mutual embraces, longing to grow into one. So ancient is the desire of one another, which is implanted in us, reuniting our original nature, making one of two, and healing the state of humankind.
Each of us when separated, having one side only, is but the indenture of a person, and we are always looking for our other half. Men and women are now drawn to one another longing to be together as they once were children of the Moon. And when we meet our other half, we are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and would not be out of the other’s sight even for a moment. We pass our whole lives together, desiring that we should be melted into one, to spend our lives as one person instead of two, and so that after our death there will be one departed soul instead of two; this is the very expression of our ancient need and desire for what is called Love.
Wedding Song (There Is Love) by Peter, Paul & Mary
He is now to be among you at the calling of your hearts
Rest assured this troubadour is acting on His part.
The union of your spirits, here, has caused Him to remain
For whenever two or more of you are gathered in His name
There is Love. Three is Love
Well, a man shall leave his mother and a woman leave her home
They shall travel on to where the two should be as one.
As it was in the beginning is now until the end
Woman draws her life from man and gives it back again.
And there is Love. There is Love.
Well, then what’s to be the reason for becoming man and wife?
Is it Love that brings you here or Love that brings you life?
Or if loving is the answer, then who’s the giving for?
Do you believe in something that you’ve never seen before?
O there’s Love, there is Love.
Oh the marriage of your spirits here has caused Him to remain
For whenever two or more of you are gathered in His name
There is Love. Oh there’s Love.
LOVE
By: Barb Upham
Love Takes time. It needs a history
of giving and receiving, laughing and crying …
Love never promises instant gratification,
only ultimate fulfillment.
Love means believing in someone, in something.
It supposes a willingness to struggle,
to work, to suffer, and to rejoice.
Satisfaction and ultimate fulfillment are
by-products of dedicated love. They
belong to those who can reach
beyond themselves; to whom giving
is more important than receiving.
Love is doing everything you can to help
others build whatever dreams they have.
Love involves much careful and active
listening. It is doing whatever needs to
be done, and saying whatever will promote
the other’s happiness, security, and
well-being. Sometimes, love hurts.
Love is a constant journey to what others
need. It must be attentive, caring, and open,
both to what others say and to what
others cannot say …
Love says no with empathy and great compassion.
Love is firm, but when needed it must be tender.
When others have tried and failed, love is
the hand in yours in your moments of
discouragement and disappointment.
Love is reliable.
Love is a choice and commitment to others’
true and lasting happiness. It is dedicated
to growth and fulfillment. Love is
not selfish.
Love sometimes fails for lack of wisdom
or abundance of weakness, but it forgives,
knowing the intentions are good.
Love does not attach conditions … Genuine
love is always a free gift.
Love realizes and accepts that there will be
disagreements and disturbing emotions …
There may be times when miles lie between,
but love is a commitment. It believes,
and endures all things.
Love encourages freedom of self. Love shares
positive and negative reactions to warm
and cold feelings.
Love, intimate love, will never reject others.
It is the first to encourage and the last
to condemn.
Love is a commitment to growth, happiness
and fulfillment of one another.
“On Love” from the Anitya by Sri Paul Twitchell
“Therefore if you desire love,
try to realize that the only way to get love is by giving love…
That the more you give the more you get;
and the only way in which you can give is to fill yourself with it,
until you become a magnet of love….
Life must unfold by love,
for even the most despicable creatures of this world.
Love, honor and obey are not the highest aspects of God,
but love is, Love is!”
Reading - Ann Landers
Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses. Love is content with the present. It hopes for the future and it doesn’t brood over the past. It’s the day-in and day-out chronicle of irritations, problems, compromises, small disappointments, big victories, and working toward common goals. If you have love in your life it can make up for a great many things that are missing. If you don’t have love in your life no matter what else there is it’s not enough.
Reading - THE ART OF MARRIAGE – Wilferd Arlan Peterson
Happiness in marriage isn’t something that just happens. A good marriage must be created. It is never being too old to hold hands. Saying I love you once a day and not taking one another for granted. It is a courtship that goes beyond the honeymoon and continues through the years. It is forming a circle of love that encompasses the whole family. It is doing kind things for each other, not in the attitude of duty or sacrifice but in the spirit of joy. It is not looking for perfection in one another but cultivating flexibility, patience, understanding, and a sense of humor. It is being close and allowing each other room to grow. It is not only marrying the right partner but also being the right partner.
Version 2 The little things are the big things.
It is never being too old to hold hands.
It is remembering to say “I love you” at least once a day.
It is never going to sleep angry.
It is never taking the other for granted; the courtship should not end with the honeymoon, it should continue through all the years.
It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.
It is standing together facing the world.
It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole family.
It is doing things for each other, not in the attitude of duty or sacrifice, but in the spirit of joy.
It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways.
It is not expecting the husband to wear a halo or the wife to have wings of an angel.
It is not looking for perfection in each other.
It is cultivating flexibility, patience, understanding and a sense of humor.
It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.
It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.
It is finding room for the things of the spirit.
It is a common search for the good and the beautiful.
It is establishing a relationship in which the independence is equal, dependence is mutual and the obligation is reciprocal.
It is not only marrying the right partner,
It is being the right partner.
Marriage Joins Two People in the Circle Of Its Love – Edmund O’Neill Marriage is a commitment to life, the best that two people can find and bring out in each other. It offers opportunities for sharing and growth that no other relationship can equal. It is a physical and an emotional joining that is promised for a lifetime. Within the circle of its love, marriage encompasses all of life’s most important relationships. A wife and a husband are each others’ best friend, confidant, love, teacher, listener, and critic. And there may come times when one partner is heartbroken or ailing, and the love of the other may resemble the tender caring of a parent for a child. Marriage deepens and enriches every facet of life. Happiness is fuller, memories are fresher, commitment is stronger, even anger is felt more strongly, and passes away more quickly. Marriage understands and forgives the mistakes life is unable to avoid. It encourages and nurtures new life, new experiences, and new ways of expressing a love that is deeper than life. When two people pledge their love and care for each other in marriage, they create a spirit unique unto themselves which binds them closer than any spoken or written words. Marriage is a promise, a potential made in the hearts of two people who love each other and takes a lifetime to fulfill.
"Passion makes the old medicine new:
Passion lops off the bough of weariness.
Passion is the elixir that renews:
How can there be weariness
when passion is present?
Oh, don't sigh heavily from fatigue:
seek passion, seek passion, seek passion!"
- Rumi
An excerpt from "A Farewell to Arms" by Ernest Hemingway
At night, there was the feeling that we had come home, feeling no longer alone, waking in the night to find the other one there, and not gone away; all other things were unreal. We slept when we were tired and if we woke the other one woke too so one was not alone. Often a man wishes to be alone and a woman wishes to be alone too and if they love each other they are jealous of that in each other, but I can truly say we never felt that. We could feel alone when we were together, alone against the others. We were never lonely and never afraid when we were together.
Swedish Proverb A life without love is like a year without summer.
Dr. Seuss
You know you’re in love
When you can’t fall asleep
Because reality is finally better
Than your dreams.
Aristotle
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
Dorothy L. Sayers I love you – I am at rest with you – I have come home.
Victor Hugo What a grand thing, to be loved! What a grander thing still, to love!
Mihri Hatun, Turkish poet At one glance I love you with a thousand hearts.
Gabriela Mistral, Chilean Poet He kissed me and now I am someone else.
Alice Walker I have learned not to worry about love; but to honor its coming with all my heart.
“And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” Matthew 19:4-6
“God, the best maker of all marriages, combine your hearts in one.” Shakespeare
“There is nothing nobler or more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends.” Homer
“The first bond of society is marriage.” Cicero
“Love begins with the desire for union.” Plato
“The only thing that can hallow marriage is love, and the only genuine marriage is that which is hallowed by love.” Leo Tolstoy
“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” Germaine Greer
“Marriage must exemplify friendship’s highest ideal.” Margaret Sanger
“Marriage is a partnership in which each inspires the other, and brings fruition to both.” Millicent Carey McIntosh
“A good marriage is based on the talent for friendship.” Friedrich Nietzsche
“Of love that says
Not mine and thine,
But ours, for ours
Is thine and mine.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“You see, when friends become lovers and then husbands and wives, well, two is definitely better than one, to themselves and to everyone they touch.” Lee Baldwin
“Teacher, tender comrade, wife,
A fellow-farer true through life.” Robert Louis Stevenson
“All I know for sure from seven years of marriage so far…is this: a good marriage is worth more than rubies, flowers, flattery and French perfume; a true, loving husband or wife is a passionate gift from life.” Anna Maria Dell’oso
“You are the only being whom I can love absolutely with my complete self, with my flesh and mind and heart. You are my mate, my perfect partner, and I am yours.” Iris Murdoch
“The highest happiness on earth is marriage.” William Lyon Phelps
“We should marry to please ourselves, not other people.” Isaac Bickerstaffe
“Married couples who love each other tell each other a thousand things without talking.” Chinese Proverb
“There is no such cozy combination as man and wife.” Menander
“Not caged, my bird, my shy, sweet bird,
But nested—nested!” Hubberton Lulham
“A marriage between mature people is not an escape but a commitment shared by two people that becomes a part of their commitment to themselves and society.” Betty Friedman
“Bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” Genesis 2:23
“The bridal wind is blowing
For love is at his noon;
And soon will your true love be with you,
Soon, O soon.” James Joyce
“A wedding, a church wedding, it’s what every girl dreams of.” Joan Bennett
“You have become mine forever.
Yes, we have become partners.
I have become yours.” Hindu Marriage Poem
“Nothing happens without a cause. The union of this man and woman has not come about accidentally but is the foreordained result of many past lives. This tie can therefore not be broken or dissolved.” Buddhist Marriage Homily
“To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the wedding cup, whenever you’re wrong, admit it; whenever you’re right, shut up.” Ogden Nash
“Rituals are important. Nowadays it’s not hip to be married. I’m not interested in being hip.” John Lennon
“Marriage is the longing for the deep, deep peace of the double bed after the hurly-burly of the chaise-longue.” Mrs. Patrick Campbell
“Marriage is a sea of dreams.” Frank Crane
“A happy marriage is a new beginning of life, a new starting point for happiness and usefulness.” A.P. Stanley
“Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone,
I here, thou there, yet both but one.” Anne Bradstreet
“Any marriage, happy or unhappy, is infinitely more interesting and significant than any romance, however passionate.” W.H. Auden
“Many marriages would be better if the husband and wife clearly understood they are on the same side.” Zig Ziglar
“The test of a happily married—and wise woman—is whether she can say, `I love you’ far oftener than she asks `do you love me?’” Dorothy Dayton
“How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse!
How much better is thy love than wine!” Song of Solomon 4:10
“Marriage is more than four bare legs in a bed.” Hoshang N. Akhtar
“Despite all protestations of men to the contrary, married life makes them happy.” Jessie Bernard
“Marriage is that relationship between man and woman in which the independence is equal, the dependence mutual, and the obligation reciprocal.” L.K. Anspacher
“My fairest, my espous’d, my latest found,
Heaven’s last best gift, my ever new delight!” John Milton
“Married love is woven into a pattern of living. It has in it the elements of understanding and of the passionate kindness of husband and wife toward each other.” Leland Foster Wood
“Marriage is the most natural state of man, and the state in which you will find solid happiness.” Benjamin Franklin
“Only choose in marriage a woman whom you would choose as a friend if she were a man.” Joseph Joubert
“Already the second day since our marriage, his love and gentleness is beyond everything, and to kiss that dear soft cheek, to press my lips to his, is heavenly bliss. I feel a purer more unearthly feel than I ever did. Oh! was ever a woman so blessed as I am.” Queen Victoria of Great Britain
“To such as you with such a master speed cannot be parted nor be swept away from one another once you are agreed that life is only life forevermore together wing to wing and oar to oar.” Robert Frost
“My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.” Winston Churchill
“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” Aristotle
“Infatuation is when you think he’s as sexy as Robert Redford, as smart as Henry Kissinger, as noble as Ralph Nader, as funny as Woody Allen, and as athletic as Jimmy Conners. Love is when you realize that he’s as sexy as Woody Allen, as smart as Jimmy Connors, as funny as Ralph Nader, as athletic as Henry Kissinger and nothing like Robert Redford - but you’ll take him anyway.” Judith Viorst
“Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave.” Martin Luther
“Life’s greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved.” Victor Hugo
“The secret to having a good marriage is to understand that marriage must be total, it must be permanent and it must be equal.” Frank Pittman
“I have come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying, and for this reason, I can never be satisfied with anyone who would be blockhead enough to have me.” Abraham Lincoln
From STILL LIFE WITH WOODPECKER -–Tom Robbins
Who knows how to make love stay?
1. Tell love you are going to Junior’s Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if love stays, it can have half. It will stay.
2. Tell love you want a memento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the burnt hair and use them to paint a mustache on your face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will stay.
3. Wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep. Love will be there in the morning.
i love you much(most beautiful darling)
more than anyone on the earth and i like you better than everything in the sky
-sunlight and singing welcome your coming
although winter may be everywhere with such a silence and such a darkness no one can quite begin to guess
(except my life)the true time of year-
and if what calls itself a world should have the luck to hear such singing(or glimpse such sunlight as will leap higher than high through gayer than gayest someone’s heart at your each
nearness)everyone certainly would(my most beautiful darling)believe in nothing but love
The Gift of Friendship....
Friendship is a priceless gift
That cannot be bought or sold
But its value is far greater
Than a mountain made of gold
For gold is cold and lifeless
It can neither see nor hear,
And in time of trouble
It is powerless to cheer~
It has no ears to listen,
No heart to understand,
It cannot bring you comfort,
Or reach out a helping hand
so, when you ask God for a gift
Be thankfulif He sends
Not diamonds, pearls or riches
But the love of real true friends.
Reading - SOUL MATES
As Soul Mates the purpose of marriage goes beyond just creating a new life together...
- It evokes one’s Intimate Soul, and stirs up the magic within that supplies a profound purpose for one’s existence and fulfillment.
- Finding one’s Soul Mate is to find someone to love completely, taking us into communion with a realm far beyond earthly life.
- More mysteriously, Soul Mates offer each other divine hope, an opportunity to enter, explore, and fulfill that that otherwise remains illusive fantasy.
- And ... marriage of Soul Mates is Holy, not only because it is a precious and revered way of joining human lives, but because it is a form of religion in itself - a special way in which spirituality pours into both lives, and beyond, into the families of each.
So you see, as Soul Mates, ______and ______ are highly aware of the influences they have over their extended families, their good friends and the responsibility of these relationships they take quite seriously.
Marriage Means Being In Love for the Rest of Your Life – (Chris Ardis)
Marriage is love walking hand in hand together. It’s laughing with each other about the little things, and learning to discuss big things with care and tenderness. In marriage it is trusting each other when you’re apart. It’s getting over disappointments and hurts, and knowing that these are present in all relationships. It’s the realization that there is no one else in this world that you’d rather be with than the one you’re married to. It’s thinking of new things to do together; It’s growing old together. Marriage is being in love for the rest of your life.
I Dreamed of a Wedding – Author Unknown
I dreamed of a wedding of elaborate elegance…
A church filled with flowers, friends and beautiful music…
I asked him what kind of a wedding he wished for…
He said one that would make me his wife.
From A Natural History Of Love By Diane Ackerman
Love. What a small word we use for an idea so immense and powerful. It has altered the flow of history, calmed monsters, kindled works of art, cheered the forlorn, turned tough guys to mush, consoled the enslaved, driven strong women mad, glorified the humble, fueled national scandals, bankrupted robber barons, and made mincemeat of kings. How can love's spaciousness be conveyed in the narrow confines of one syllable? Love is an ancient delirium, a desire older than civilization, with taproots spreading into deep and mysterious days. The heart is a living museum.
In each of its galleries, no matter how narrow or dimly lit, preserved forever like wondrous diatoms, are our moments of loving, and being loved.
From Gift From The Sea
By Anne Morrow Lindbergh
When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the
same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a
lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We
have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of
relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its
ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on
duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as
in love, is in growth, in fluidity-in freedom in the sense that the
dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same
pattern.
Sonnet XLIII
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, -- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! -- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Give All To Love by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Give all to love;
Obey thy heart;
Friends, kindred, days,
Estate, good fame,
Plans, credit, and the muse;
Nothing refuse.
'Tis a brave master,
Let it have scope,
Follow it utterly,
Hope beyond hope;
High and more high,
It dives into noon,
With wing unspent,
Untold intent;
But 'tis a god,
Knows its own path,
And the outlets of the sky.
'Tis not for the mean,
It requireth courage stout,
Souls above doubt,
Valor unbending;
Such 'twill reward,
They shall return
More than they were,
And ever ascending.
Leave all for love;--
Yet, hear me, yet,
One word more thy heart behoved,
One pulse more of firm endeavor,
Keep thee to-day,
To-morrow, for ever,
Free as an Arab
Of thy beloved.
Cling with life to the maid;
But when the surprise,
Vague shadow of surmise,
Flits across her bosom young
Of a joy apart from thee,
Free be she, fancy-free,
Do not thou detain a hem,
Nor the palest rose she flung
From her summer diadem.
Though thou loved her as thyself,
As a self of purer clay,
Tho' her parting dims the day,
Stealing grace from all alive,
Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The gods arrive.
Reading Alernative (from Brides.com)
Instead of a traditional ceremony reading, have a friend read aloud notes and letters that you and your groom have written to each other during your relationship.
Khalil Gibran
Then Almitra spoke again and said,
And what of Marriage, Master?
And he answered saying:
You were born together,
and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when
the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in
the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens
dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between
the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread
but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous,
but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though
they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.
Marriage is a Daily Challenge by Sydney Barbara Metrick
Marriage is a daily challenge which must be met with acceptance, confidence, and awe. There is no way to understand how you will change and grow from day to day, no way to prepare for the enigmatic drama of life. In your past marriages, in your relationships with friends and family, and in the many experiences of your lives, you have learned tolerance, flexibility, and patience. You now both feel you have acquired and developed the necessary resources that will enable you to share your lives successfully. You are not afraid to make mistakes or to ask for help; and, most importantly, you do not expect every moment to be as perfect as those you are sharing right now.
Bride and Groom Love Poem (They face each other, holding hands)
With your hand in mine
We walk together,
our love so strong
yet so tender and free.
Our hearts beat as one and
our thoughts are beautiful
for as my eyes meet yours
there is no doubt
our lives have touched
and throughout all eternity
the beauty shall be there
as sure as the wind
as sure as we care
as sure as we love
"Beach Chairs" by Joyce Ebrecht
Sitting on the beach chairs
watching the setting sun
holding hands and reminiscing
how it all begun
Sitting on the beach chairs
watching the ships out on the sea
holding hands and smiling
together we're meant to be
Sitting on the beach chairs
watching people walking past
holding hands and knowing
that our love will always last
Sitting on the beach chairs
watching the waves along the shore
holding hands we realize
our love is stronger than before
Sitting on the beach chairs
watching the changing tide
holding hands with happiness
to be by each others side
Sitting on the beach chairs
watching the sunrise
holding hands with tears of joy
there are no more good-byes.
The Promise by Heather Berry
Within this blessed union of souls
Where two hearts intertwine to become one,
There lies a promise.
Perfectly born, divinely created, and intimately shared,
It is a place where the hope and majestyof beginnings reside.
Where all things are made possible
By the astounding love shared by two spirits.
As you hold each other's hands in this promise,
And eagerly look to the future in each other's eyes,
May your unconditional love and devotion
Take you to places of which you've both only dreamed,
Where you'll dwellfor a lifetime of happiness
Sheltered in the warmthof each other's arms.
REAL LOVE by Daphne Rose Kingma
For it is in loving, as well as in being loved, that we become most truly ourselves. No matter what we do, say, accomplish, or become, it is our capacity to love that ultimately defines us. In the end, nothing we do or say in this lifetime will matter as much as the way we have loved one another.
ABUNDANCE AND DELIGHT - author unknown
Treat yourselves and each other with respect, and remind yourselves often of what brought you together. Give the highest priority to the tenderness, gentleness and kindness that your connection deserves. When frustration, difficulties and fear assail your relationship - remember to focus on what is right between you, not only the part which seems wrong. In this way, you can ride out the storms when clouds hide the face of the sun in your lives - remembering that even if you lose sight of it for a moment, the sun is still there. And if each of you takes responsibility for the quality of your life together, it will be marked by abundance and delight.
CHERISH EVERY MOMENT by Leslie A.Neilson
Today is the beginning of a dream.
A day where two souls are woven together.
Cherish every moment that life offers.
And celebrate every small pleasure.
Express your love at every chance.
And allow it to unfold gracefully.
Show your devotion and dedicate your lives
to the enrichment of each other.
Strive always for honesty and integrity.
Build upon your marriage daily.
And seek to understand each other.
But above all this...
Draw upon the love you feel today
and forever etch it in your hearts.
IN MARRIAGE by Julia Escobar
Cherish each other
in big ways and in small ways,
and never forget the magic
of those three little words: "I love you".
In marriage, remember that
it is the little things that make the difference...
Don't forget the birthdays and the anniversaries.
An occasional note means a lot.
Share each other's life - even the small details -
for too often we forget
that day-after-day becomes
year-after-year, and then it's gone.
Give each other room to grow...
We all need our time alone.
Keep strong your faith in each other;
time has a funny way of testing us,
and it's faith that gets us through.
Respect one another...
This world could always use more of that.
Speak your mind honestly, openly,
but with kindness,
for angry words are scars that may never heal.
Trust each other;
let your trust be your rock.
Most of all, each day...
be sure to hold each other
and fall in love all over again.
The Perfect love, The Perfect friend – Renee Duvall
Because you are my love… I know the joy that comes from feeling closer to someone than I’ve ever felt before.
Because you are my love… I know the passion of wanting to share everything I have, everything I am with you and only you.
Because you are my friend.... I know that I can count on you to hold my hand through the rough times and to be there to share the good times too.
Because you are my friend… I’ll always have someone to make me smile just when I need it most, and to encourage me when I’m feeling confused or doubtful.
I know that I must be one of the luckiest people in the world to have someone like you.
The perfect love, the perfect friend.
I Promise – Dorothy R. Colgan
I promise to give you the best of myself and to ask of you no more than you can give.
I promise to respect you as your own person and to realize that your interests, desires and needs are no less important than my own.
I promise to share with you my time and my attention and to bring joy, strength and imagination to our relationship.
I promise to keep myself open to you, to let you see through the window of my world into my innermost fears and feelings, secrets and dreams.
I promise to grow along with you, to be willing to face changes in order to keep our relationship alive and exciting.
I promise to love you in good times and in bad, with all I have to give and all I feel inside in the only way I know how.
Completely and forever.
Lau Tzu, “Transforming Power”
Your love contains the power
Of a thousand suns.
It unfolds as naturally and effortlessly
As does a flower,
And graces the world with its blooming.
Its beauty radiates a transforming energy
That enlivens all who see it.
Because of you, compassion and joy
Are added to the world.
That is why the stars sing together
Because of your love.
Chief Dan George
Love is something you and I must have. We must have it because our spirit feeds upon it. We must have it because without it we become weak and faint. Without love our self-esteem weakens. Without it our courage fails. Without love we can no longer look out confidently at the world. We turn inward and begin to feed upon our own personalities, and little by little we destroy ourselves.
With it we are creative. With it we march tirelessly. With it, and with it alone, we are able to sacrifice for others.
Shakespeare Sonnet CXVI
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds.
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O, no! It is an ever fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
It is the star to every wandering bark
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
Excerpt from the I Ching
But when two people are as one
In their innermost hearts,
They shatter even the strength
Of iron or of bronze.
And when two people understand each other
In their innermost hearts,
Their words are sweet and strong
Like the fragrance of orchids.
Prophet - Kahlil Gibran
Your were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.
Constance, the empress of Rome, remarked that when St. Francis and St. Clara were in each other’s company, the spark between them glowed so bright that the convent and surrounding wood appear to be on fire. So bright that the folk of Assisi rushed to quench the flames.
"How I envy the folk of Assisi who saw those mystic flames,” Empress Constance would say.
Well, how lucky each of us are today to witness the glowing spark here between _____ and ______.
A Little Something
Love is the greatest gift that we can offer to one another. That is what makes marriage so very special, and a cause for joy and celebration for all of us who have come here today to share in this event. It is my personal hope and prayer that those of you who have already taken the vows of marriage will witness the love of these two people, and as you listen to them share their vows, perhaps it will strengthen for you the memory of your happy day, and remind you of the meaning of the vows you yourselves once took. Perhaps it will even strengthen just a little bit the bond of love that has been growing between you, and if any of this should happen, it would certainly be the greatest gift that _____ and ______ could offer all of us on their wedding day.
Rilke’s letter to a young poet #7 It is also good to love: because love is difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult task that has been entrusted to us, the ultimate task, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation. That is why young people, who are beginners in everything, are not yet capable of love: it is something they must learn. With their whole being, with all their forces, gathered around their solitary, anxious, upward-beating heart, they must learn to love. But learning-time is always a long, secluded time, and therefore loving, for a long time ahead and far on into life, is: solitude, a heightened and deepened kind of aloneness for the person who loves. Loving does not at first mean merging, surrendering, and uniting with another person (for what would a union be of two people who are unclarified, unfinished and still incoherent?) It is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world in himself for the sake of another person; it is a great, demanding claim on him. Something that chooses him and calls him to vast distances. Only in this sense, as the task of working on themselves (“to hearken and to hammer day and night”), may young people use the love that is given to them. Merging and surrendering and every kind of communion is not for them (who must still, for a long, long time, save and gather themselves); it is the ultimate, is perhaps that for which human lives are as yet barely large enough.
Lotus Flower
_____ and ____, the relationship that you have nourished together stands for love that will blossom and grow with each passing day. It is very appropriate that you have chosen the lotus as the theme of your wedding for a lotus flower has qualities that mirror your relationship.
The lotus flower grows out of the mud and muck into a beautiful and inspiring blossom. The petals of a lotus are actually very strong and can withstand heavy weather.
Your relationship has weathered many challenges - including distance and time – that most relationships wouldn’t survive. Your belief in each other and dedication to your future through all of your challenges makes this day that much sweeter for the two of you and an awe inspiring miracle to those who have witnessed what you have overcome together.
Word Play (http://www.squidoo.com/weddingceremonyhumorousreadings)
Congratulations on the termination of your isolation and may I express an appreciation of your determination to end the desperation and frustration which has caused you so much consternation in giving you the inspiration to make a combination to bring an accumulation to the population.
Mark Twain to Olivia Langdon
This...will be the mightiest day in the history of our lives, the holiest, & the most generous toward us both -- for it makes of two fractional lives a whole; it gives to two purposeless lives a work, & doubles the strength of each whereby to perform it; it gives to two questioning natures a reason for living, & something to live for; it will give a new gladness to the sunshine, a new fragrance to the flowers, a new beauty to the earth, a new mystery to life; & it will give a new revelation to love, a new depth to sorrow, a new impulse to worship. In that day the scales will fall from our eyes & we shall look upon a new world.
- letter to Olivia Langdon, 8 September 1869
True Love (Author Unknown)
True love is a sacred flame that burns eternally,
And none can dim its special glow or change its destiny
True love speaks in tender tones and hears with gentle ear,
True love gives with open heart and true love conquers fear.
True love makes no harsh demands it neither rules nor binds.
True love holds with gentle hands the hearts that it entwines.
Your Laughter by Pablo Neruda
Take bread away from me, if you wish,
take air away, but
do not take from me your laughter.
Do not take away the rose,
the lance flower that you pluck,
the water that suddenly
bursts forth in joy,
the sudden wave
of silver born in you.
My struggle is harsh and I come back
with eyes tired
at times from having seen
the unchanging earth,
but when your laughter enters
it rises to the sky seeking me
and it opens for me all
the doors of life.
Next to the sea in the autumn,
your laughter must raise
its foamy cascade,
and in the spring, love,
I want your laughter like
the flower I was waiting for,
the blue flower, the rose
of my echoing country.
Laugh at the night,
at the day, at the moon,
laugh at the twisted
streets of the island,
laugh at this clumsy
boy who loves you,
but when I open
my eyes and close them,
when my steps go,
when my steps return,
deny me bread, air,
light, spring,
but never your laughter
for I would die.
Sonnet 17 by Pablo Neruda
I don’t love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.
He Wishes For The Cloths Of Heaven by William Butler Yeats
Had I the heaven's embroidered cloths,
Enwrought with golden and silver light,
the blue and the dim and the dark cloths
of night and light and the half-light,
I would spread the cloths under your feet:
But I, being poor, have only my dreams;
I have spread my dreams under your feet;
Tread softly because you tread on my dreams.
by Roy Croft
I love you
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.
I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.
I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can't help
Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find
I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern
But a temple.
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.
I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good.
And more than any fate
Could have done
To make me happy.
You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.
Perhaps that is what
Being a friend means,
After all.
I Like You
a children’s book by Sandol Stoddard Warburg
I like you and I know why.
I like you because you are a good person to like.
I like you because when I tell you something special, you know it's
special
And you remember it a long, long time.
You say, Remember when you told me something special
And both of us remember
When I think something is important
you think it's important too
We have good ideas
When I say something funny, you laugh
I think I'm funny and you think I'm funny too
Hah-hah!
I like you because you know where I'm ticklish
And you don't tickle me there except just a little tiny bit sometimes
But if you do, then I know where to tickle you too
You know how to be silly
That's why I like you
Boy are you ever silly
I never met anybody sillier than me till I met you
I like you because you know when it's time to stop being silly
Maybe day after tomorrow
Maybe never
Too late, it's a quarter past silly
Sometimes we don't say a word
We snurkle under fences
We spy secret places
If I am a goofus on the roofus hollering my head off
You are one too
If I pretend I am drowning, you pretend you are saving me
If I am getting ready to pop a paper bag,
then you are getting ready to jump
HOORAY
That's because you really like me
You really like me, don't you
And I really like you back
And you like me back and I like you back
And that's the way we keep on going every day
Swami Omkarananada
Love has wisdom that can solve every problem. It possesses the great patience which waits until, drop by drop, an ocean is formed. Love is royal in dignity, brave in spirit, unbreakable in substance, and divine in nature. It does not complain, does not judge. It transforms everything that it touches. It rules everything to which it presents its own Light. It understands and yields only to conquer fully. Love has numberless resources and inexhaustible energies.
Diane Ackerman, A History of Love
Love. What a small word we use for an idea so immense and powerful it has altered the flow of history, calmed monsters, kindled works of art, cheered the forlorn, turned tough guys to mush, consoled the enslaved, driven strong women mad, glorified the humble, fueled national scandals, bankrupted robber barons, and made mincemeat of kings. How can love’s spaciousness be conveyed in the narrow confines of one syllable? Love is an ancient delirium, a desire older than civilization, with taproots stretching deep into dark and mysterious days…
The heart is a living museum. In each of its galleries, no matter how narrow or dimly lit, preserved forever like wondrous diatoms, are our moments of loving and being loved.
Why Marriage? (Author Unknown)
Because to the depths of me, I long to love one person,
With all my heart, my soul, my mind, my body...
Because I need a forever friend to trust with the intimacies of me,
Who won't hold them against me,
Who loves me when I'm unlikable,
Who sees the small child in me, and
Who looks for the divine potential of me...
Because I need to cuddle in the warmth of the night
With someone who thanks God for me,
With someone I feel blessed to hold.
The Key to Love
The key to love is understanding ...
The ability to comprehend not only the spoken word,
but also those unspoken gestures,
the little things that say so much by themselves.
The key to love is forgiveness....
to accept each other’s faults and pardon mistakes,
without forgetting, but with remembering
what you learn from them.
The key to love is sharing ...
Facing your good fortunes as well as the bad, together;
both conquering problems, forever searching for ways
to intensify your happiness.
The key to love is giving ...
without thought of return,
but with the hope of just a simple smile,
and by giving in but never giving up.
The key to love is respect ...
realizing that you are two separate people, with different ideas;
that you don't belong to each other,
that you belong with each other, and share a mutual bond.
The key to love is inside us all ...
It takes time and patience to unlock all the ingredients
that will take you to its threshold;
it is the continual learning process that demands a lot of work ... but the rewards are more than worth the effort ...
and that is the key to love.
Anon
Oh, My Love!
Oh my love!
How very like a rose you are,
My regal, fragrant, floral star;
I truly love you, love you, love!
Oh my love!
When in the sun’s reflecting hues You bask, no task may I refuse
Because I love you, love you, love!
Oh my love!
Should I, by chance, be severed free
Of senses made to smell and see,
I’d feel your nearness next to me
As one hand feels another darkly there
And presses to another as in prayer;
I’d know that feel of kinship’s care
As I now know this heart of mine
Shall ever love you, love!
Oh my love!
Should that axe of ages activate
To prematurely untogether all,
All aspirations must, like dreams, abate
Until horns of Michael call;
Yet, when two lives are merged, as we,
And each becomes the other’s me,
Then, servitude’s the highest free
And, in oneness, we shall be
Together everlasting!
Such a trite catastrophe
Could never mar our unity
Because my spirit loves the love of loving you!
Fenton Johnson
“But in love
something miraculous happens.
In loving someone,
we give them
an ideal against which
to measure themselves.
Living in the presence
of that ideal,
the beloved strives to fulfill
the lover’s expectations.
In this way,
Love makes of us
the bravest and best persons
that we are capable of being.”
Jean Marie Rilke
Understand, I’ll slip quietly
Away from the noisy crowd
When I see the pale
Stars rising, blooming over the oaks
I’ll pursue solitary pathways
Through the pale twilight meadows
With only this one dream,
You come too.
Shakespeare
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
e.e. cummings
I carry your heart with me (I carry it in my heart)
I am never without it (anywhere I go you go, my dear;
and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)
I fear no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)
I want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my rue)
And it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
And whatever a sun will always sing is you
Here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life;
which grows higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
I carry your heart (I carry it in my heart)
e.e. cummings
somewhere I have never traveled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me, or which I cannot
touch because they are too near
your slightest look easily will unclose me
though I have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skillfully, mysteriously) her first rose
or if your wish be to close me, I and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;
nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture compels me with the
colour of its countries, rendering death and forever with each breathing
(I do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands.
The Passionate Shepherd to His Love by Christopher Marlowe
Come live with me and be my Love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That hills and valleys, dale and field,
And all the craggy mountains yield.
There will we sit upon the rocks
And see the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers, to whose falls
Melocious birds sing madrigals.
There will I make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroider’d all with leaves of myrtle.
A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull,
Fair linèd slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold.
A belt of straw and ivy buds
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my Love.
Thy silver dishes for thy meat
As precious as the gods do eat,
Shall on an ivory table be
Prepared each day for thee and me.
The shepherd swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May-morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my Love.
“My Luve” by Robert Burns
O my luve is like a red, red rose,
That`s newly sprung in June:
O my luve is like the melodie,
That`s sweetly played in tune.
As fair art thou, my bonie lass,
So deep in luve am I;
And I will luve thee still, my dear,
Till a` the seas gang dry.
Till a` the seas gang dry, my dear,
And the rocks melt wi` the sun;
And I will luve thee still my dear,
While the sands o` life shall run.
And fare thee weel, my only luve!
And fare thee weel a while!
And I will come again, my luve,
Tho` it were ten thousand mile
Eternity Of Your Love by Millette Addison
Your love is... an ocean,
Where sand meets the sea,
Waves of love rolling over me,
Your love comes to me,
As the tide comes to the shore,
Wanting and needing to embrace me more,
Your love is... the moon,
Shining across the shimmering sea,
Deep, wide, strong, and calm.
Always there to carry me.
Your love is... my shelter,
My compass, my true north,
Where ever I go, your love is guiding me forth,
Your love is.... the fresh ocean breeze,
Gently sweeping across my face,
Touching me from place to place,
Your love is...
The salty air I smell,
Clearing my thoughts and thinking,
Your love is...
The life preserver that keeps me from sinking,
When I go there to the sea,
I am not alone, for your love is with me,
I feel you all around,
The beauty, the wind, the mystery,
Your love engulfs me,
Takes my breath away,
Holds me in wind's arms,
When I close my eyes,
Dancing memories of your charms,
Never escape my deepest memory,
So if ever our souls part to say goodbye,
Meet me there, where the sea meets the sky,
Your love will forever be with me,
Where the sands touch the sea,
Our love lives on,
Our love flows back out into all eternity.
What is REAL? (from the Velveteen Rabbit children’s story)
“What is REAL?” asked the rabbit one day, when they were laying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen often to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real, you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand.”
The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint Exupéry
"Go and look again at the roses,”[said the fox]. “You will understand now that yours is unique in all the world. Then come back to say goodbye to me, and I will make you a present of a secret."
The little prince went away, to look again at the roses.
"You are not at all like my rose," he said. "As yet you are nothing. No one has tamed you, and you have tamed no one. You are like my fox when I first knew him. He was only a fox like a hundred thousand other foxes. But I have made him my friend, and now he is unique in all the world."
And the roses were very much embarrassed.
"You are beautiful, but you are empty," he went on. "One could not die for you. To be sure, an ordinary passerby would think that my rose looked just like you--the rose that belongs to me. But in herself alone she is more important than all the hundreds of you other roses: because it is she that I have watered...; because it is she that I have sheltered behind the screen; because it is for her that I have killed the caterpillars (except the two or three that we saved to become butterflies); because it is she that I have listened to, when she grumbled, or boasted, or even sometimes when she said nothing. Because she is my rose.”
And he went back to meet the fox.
..."Goodbye," said the fox. "And now here is my secret, a very simple secret: It is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye."
...”It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important."
...”Men have forgotten this truth," said the fox. "But you must not forget it. You become responsible, forever, for what you have tamed. You are responsible for your rose..."
Love Takes time. It needs a history
Of giving and receiving, laughing and crying …
Love never promises instant gratification,
Only ultimate fulfillment.
Love means believing in someone, in something.
It supposes a willingness to struggle,
To work, to suffer, and to rejoice.
Satisfaction and ultimate fulfillment are
by-products of dedicated love. They
belong to those who can reach
beyond themselves; to whom giving
is more important than receiving.
Love is doing everything you can to help
others build whatever dreams they have.
Love involves much careful and active
listening. It is doing whatever needs to
be done, and saying whatever will promote
the other’s happiness, security, and
well-being. Sometimes, love hurts.
Love is a constant journey to what others
need. It must be attentive, caring, and open,
both to what others say and to what
others cannot say …
Love says no with empathy and great compassion.
Love is firm, but when needed it must be tender.
When others have tried and failed, love is
the hand in yours in your moments of
discouragement and disappointment.
Love is reliable.
Love is a choice and commitment to others’
true and lasting happiness. It is dedicated
to growth and fulfillment. Love is
not selfish.
Love sometimes fails for lack of wisdom
or abundance of weakness, but it forgives,
knowing the intentions are good.
Love does not attach conditions … Genuine
love is always a free gift.
Love realizes and accepts that there will be
disagreements and disturbing emotions …
There may be times when miles lie between,
but love is a commitment. It believes,
and endures all things.
Love encourages freedom of self. Love shares
positive and negative reactions to warm
and cold feelings.
Love, intimate love, will never reject others.
It is the first to encourage and the last
to condemn.
Love is a commitment to growth, happiness
and fulfillment of one another.
“Love Is A Great Thing” by Thomas à Kempis
Love is a great thing; a great and thorough good.
By itself it makes that is heavy light; and it bears evenly all that is uneven.
It carries a burden which is no burden; it will not be kept back by anything low and mean
It desires to be free from all worldly affections, and not to be entangled by any outward prosperity, or by any adversity subdued.
Love feels no burden, thinks nothing of trouble, attempts what is above its strength, pleads no excuse of impossibility. It is therefore able to undertake all things, and it completes many things, and warrants them to take effect, where he who does not love would faint and lie down.
Though weary, it is not tired; though pressed it is not straitened
Though alarmed, it is not confounded; but as a living flame it forces itself upwards and securely passes through all.
Love is active and sincere, courageous, patient, faithful, prudent and strong.
Adaptation of Plato's Symposium
Love is our best friend, our helper, and the healer of the ills that cause unhappiness.
To understand the power of Love, we must understand that our original human nature was not like it is now, but different. Astrology has it that human beings each had two sets of arms, two sets of legs, and two faces looking in opposite directions. Man and a woman were once as one, called the children of the Moon.
The Gods divided these humans in half creating two parts of each desiring their other half. When they came together, they threw their arms about one another, entwined in mutual embraces, longing to grow into one. So ancient is the desire of one another, which is implanted in us, reuniting our original nature, making one of two, and healing the state of humankind.
Each of us when separated, having one side only, is but the indenture of a person, and we are always looking for our other half. Men and women are now drawn to one another longing to be together as they once were children of the Moon. And when we meet our other half, we are lost in an amazement of love and friendship and intimacy, and would not be out of the other’s sight even for a moment. We pass our whole lives together, desiring that we should be melted into one, to spend our lives as one person instead of two, and so that after our death there will be one departed soul instead of two; this is the very expression of our ancient need and desire for what is called Love.
Wedding Song (There Is Love) by Peter, Paul & Mary
He is now to be among you at the calling of your hearts
Rest assured this troubadour is acting on His part.
The union of your spirits, here, has caused Him to remain
For whenever two or more of you are gathered in His name
There is Love. Three is Love
Well, a man shall leave his mother and a woman leave her home
They shall travel on to where the two should be as one.
As it was in the beginning is now until the end
Woman draws her life from man and gives it back again.
And there is Love. There is Love.
Well, then what’s to be the reason for becoming man and wife?
Is it Love that brings you here or Love that brings you life?
Or if loving is the answer, then who’s the giving for?
Do you believe in something that you’ve never seen before?
O there’s Love, there is Love.
Oh the marriage of your spirits here has caused Him to remain
For whenever two or more of you are gathered in His name
There is Love. Oh there’s Love.
LOVE
By: Barb Upham
Love Takes time. It needs a history
of giving and receiving, laughing and crying …
Love never promises instant gratification,
only ultimate fulfillment.
Love means believing in someone, in something.
It supposes a willingness to struggle,
to work, to suffer, and to rejoice.
Satisfaction and ultimate fulfillment are
by-products of dedicated love. They
belong to those who can reach
beyond themselves; to whom giving
is more important than receiving.
Love is doing everything you can to help
others build whatever dreams they have.
Love involves much careful and active
listening. It is doing whatever needs to
be done, and saying whatever will promote
the other’s happiness, security, and
well-being. Sometimes, love hurts.
Love is a constant journey to what others
need. It must be attentive, caring, and open,
both to what others say and to what
others cannot say …
Love says no with empathy and great compassion.
Love is firm, but when needed it must be tender.
When others have tried and failed, love is
the hand in yours in your moments of
discouragement and disappointment.
Love is reliable.
Love is a choice and commitment to others’
true and lasting happiness. It is dedicated
to growth and fulfillment. Love is
not selfish.
Love sometimes fails for lack of wisdom
or abundance of weakness, but it forgives,
knowing the intentions are good.
Love does not attach conditions … Genuine
love is always a free gift.
Love realizes and accepts that there will be
disagreements and disturbing emotions …
There may be times when miles lie between,
but love is a commitment. It believes,
and endures all things.
Love encourages freedom of self. Love shares
positive and negative reactions to warm
and cold feelings.
Love, intimate love, will never reject others.
It is the first to encourage and the last
to condemn.
Love is a commitment to growth, happiness
and fulfillment of one another.
“On Love” from the Anitya by Sri Paul Twitchell
“Therefore if you desire love,
try to realize that the only way to get love is by giving love…
That the more you give the more you get;
and the only way in which you can give is to fill yourself with it,
until you become a magnet of love….
Life must unfold by love,
for even the most despicable creatures of this world.
Love, honor and obey are not the highest aspects of God,
but love is, Love is!”
Reading - Ann Landers
Love is friendship that has caught fire. It is quiet understanding, mutual confidence, sharing and forgiving. It is loyalty through good and bad times. It settles for less than perfection and makes allowances for human weaknesses. Love is content with the present. It hopes for the future and it doesn’t brood over the past. It’s the day-in and day-out chronicle of irritations, problems, compromises, small disappointments, big victories, and working toward common goals. If you have love in your life it can make up for a great many things that are missing. If you don’t have love in your life no matter what else there is it’s not enough.
Reading - THE ART OF MARRIAGE – Wilferd Arlan Peterson
Happiness in marriage isn’t something that just happens. A good marriage must be created. It is never being too old to hold hands. Saying I love you once a day and not taking one another for granted. It is a courtship that goes beyond the honeymoon and continues through the years. It is forming a circle of love that encompasses the whole family. It is doing kind things for each other, not in the attitude of duty or sacrifice but in the spirit of joy. It is not looking for perfection in one another but cultivating flexibility, patience, understanding, and a sense of humor. It is being close and allowing each other room to grow. It is not only marrying the right partner but also being the right partner.
Version 2 The little things are the big things.
It is never being too old to hold hands.
It is remembering to say “I love you” at least once a day.
It is never going to sleep angry.
It is never taking the other for granted; the courtship should not end with the honeymoon, it should continue through all the years.
It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.
It is standing together facing the world.
It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole family.
It is doing things for each other, not in the attitude of duty or sacrifice, but in the spirit of joy.
It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways.
It is not expecting the husband to wear a halo or the wife to have wings of an angel.
It is not looking for perfection in each other.
It is cultivating flexibility, patience, understanding and a sense of humor.
It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.
It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.
It is finding room for the things of the spirit.
It is a common search for the good and the beautiful.
It is establishing a relationship in which the independence is equal, dependence is mutual and the obligation is reciprocal.
It is not only marrying the right partner,
It is being the right partner.
Marriage Joins Two People in the Circle Of Its Love – Edmund O’Neill Marriage is a commitment to life, the best that two people can find and bring out in each other. It offers opportunities for sharing and growth that no other relationship can equal. It is a physical and an emotional joining that is promised for a lifetime. Within the circle of its love, marriage encompasses all of life’s most important relationships. A wife and a husband are each others’ best friend, confidant, love, teacher, listener, and critic. And there may come times when one partner is heartbroken or ailing, and the love of the other may resemble the tender caring of a parent for a child. Marriage deepens and enriches every facet of life. Happiness is fuller, memories are fresher, commitment is stronger, even anger is felt more strongly, and passes away more quickly. Marriage understands and forgives the mistakes life is unable to avoid. It encourages and nurtures new life, new experiences, and new ways of expressing a love that is deeper than life. When two people pledge their love and care for each other in marriage, they create a spirit unique unto themselves which binds them closer than any spoken or written words. Marriage is a promise, a potential made in the hearts of two people who love each other and takes a lifetime to fulfill.
"Passion makes the old medicine new:
Passion lops off the bough of weariness.
Passion is the elixir that renews:
How can there be weariness
when passion is present?
Oh, don't sigh heavily from fatigue:
seek passion, seek passion, seek passion!"
- Rumi
An excerpt from "A Farewell to Arms" by Ernest Hemingway
At night, there was the feeling that we had come home, feeling no longer alone, waking in the night to find the other one there, and not gone away; all other things were unreal. We slept when we were tired and if we woke the other one woke too so one was not alone. Often a man wishes to be alone and a woman wishes to be alone too and if they love each other they are jealous of that in each other, but I can truly say we never felt that. We could feel alone when we were together, alone against the others. We were never lonely and never afraid when we were together.
Swedish Proverb A life without love is like a year without summer.
Dr. Seuss
You know you’re in love
When you can’t fall asleep
Because reality is finally better
Than your dreams.
Aristotle
Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.
Dorothy L. Sayers I love you – I am at rest with you – I have come home.
Victor Hugo What a grand thing, to be loved! What a grander thing still, to love!
Mihri Hatun, Turkish poet At one glance I love you with a thousand hearts.
Gabriela Mistral, Chilean Poet He kissed me and now I am someone else.
Alice Walker I have learned not to worry about love; but to honor its coming with all my heart.
“And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.” Matthew 19:4-6
“God, the best maker of all marriages, combine your hearts in one.” Shakespeare
“There is nothing nobler or more admirable than when two people who see eye to eye keep house as man and wife, confounding their enemies and delighting their friends.” Homer
“The first bond of society is marriage.” Cicero
“Love begins with the desire for union.” Plato
“The only thing that can hallow marriage is love, and the only genuine marriage is that which is hallowed by love.” Leo Tolstoy
“A successful marriage requires falling in love many times, always with the same person.” Germaine Greer
“Marriage must exemplify friendship’s highest ideal.” Margaret Sanger
“Marriage is a partnership in which each inspires the other, and brings fruition to both.” Millicent Carey McIntosh
“A good marriage is based on the talent for friendship.” Friedrich Nietzsche
“Of love that says
Not mine and thine,
But ours, for ours
Is thine and mine.” Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
“You see, when friends become lovers and then husbands and wives, well, two is definitely better than one, to themselves and to everyone they touch.” Lee Baldwin
“Teacher, tender comrade, wife,
A fellow-farer true through life.” Robert Louis Stevenson
“All I know for sure from seven years of marriage so far…is this: a good marriage is worth more than rubies, flowers, flattery and French perfume; a true, loving husband or wife is a passionate gift from life.” Anna Maria Dell’oso
“You are the only being whom I can love absolutely with my complete self, with my flesh and mind and heart. You are my mate, my perfect partner, and I am yours.” Iris Murdoch
“The highest happiness on earth is marriage.” William Lyon Phelps
“We should marry to please ourselves, not other people.” Isaac Bickerstaffe
“Married couples who love each other tell each other a thousand things without talking.” Chinese Proverb
“There is no such cozy combination as man and wife.” Menander
“Not caged, my bird, my shy, sweet bird,
But nested—nested!” Hubberton Lulham
“A marriage between mature people is not an escape but a commitment shared by two people that becomes a part of their commitment to themselves and society.” Betty Friedman
“Bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.” Genesis 2:23
“The bridal wind is blowing
For love is at his noon;
And soon will your true love be with you,
Soon, O soon.” James Joyce
“A wedding, a church wedding, it’s what every girl dreams of.” Joan Bennett
“You have become mine forever.
Yes, we have become partners.
I have become yours.” Hindu Marriage Poem
“Nothing happens without a cause. The union of this man and woman has not come about accidentally but is the foreordained result of many past lives. This tie can therefore not be broken or dissolved.” Buddhist Marriage Homily
“To keep your marriage brimming, with love in the wedding cup, whenever you’re wrong, admit it; whenever you’re right, shut up.” Ogden Nash
“Rituals are important. Nowadays it’s not hip to be married. I’m not interested in being hip.” John Lennon
“Marriage is the longing for the deep, deep peace of the double bed after the hurly-burly of the chaise-longue.” Mrs. Patrick Campbell
“Marriage is a sea of dreams.” Frank Crane
“A happy marriage is a new beginning of life, a new starting point for happiness and usefulness.” A.P. Stanley
“Flesh of my flesh, bone of my bone,
I here, thou there, yet both but one.” Anne Bradstreet
“Any marriage, happy or unhappy, is infinitely more interesting and significant than any romance, however passionate.” W.H. Auden
“Many marriages would be better if the husband and wife clearly understood they are on the same side.” Zig Ziglar
“The test of a happily married—and wise woman—is whether she can say, `I love you’ far oftener than she asks `do you love me?’” Dorothy Dayton
“How fair is thy love, my sister, my spouse!
How much better is thy love than wine!” Song of Solomon 4:10
“Marriage is more than four bare legs in a bed.” Hoshang N. Akhtar
“Despite all protestations of men to the contrary, married life makes them happy.” Jessie Bernard
“Marriage is that relationship between man and woman in which the independence is equal, the dependence mutual, and the obligation reciprocal.” L.K. Anspacher
“My fairest, my espous’d, my latest found,
Heaven’s last best gift, my ever new delight!” John Milton
“Married love is woven into a pattern of living. It has in it the elements of understanding and of the passionate kindness of husband and wife toward each other.” Leland Foster Wood
“Marriage is the most natural state of man, and the state in which you will find solid happiness.” Benjamin Franklin
“Only choose in marriage a woman whom you would choose as a friend if she were a man.” Joseph Joubert
“Already the second day since our marriage, his love and gentleness is beyond everything, and to kiss that dear soft cheek, to press my lips to his, is heavenly bliss. I feel a purer more unearthly feel than I ever did. Oh! was ever a woman so blessed as I am.” Queen Victoria of Great Britain
“To such as you with such a master speed cannot be parted nor be swept away from one another once you are agreed that life is only life forevermore together wing to wing and oar to oar.” Robert Frost
“My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.” Winston Churchill
“Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.” Aristotle
“Infatuation is when you think he’s as sexy as Robert Redford, as smart as Henry Kissinger, as noble as Ralph Nader, as funny as Woody Allen, and as athletic as Jimmy Conners. Love is when you realize that he’s as sexy as Woody Allen, as smart as Jimmy Connors, as funny as Ralph Nader, as athletic as Henry Kissinger and nothing like Robert Redford - but you’ll take him anyway.” Judith Viorst
“Let the wife make the husband glad to come home, and let him make her sorry to see him leave.” Martin Luther
“Life’s greatest happiness is to be convinced we are loved.” Victor Hugo
“The secret to having a good marriage is to understand that marriage must be total, it must be permanent and it must be equal.” Frank Pittman
“I have come to the conclusion never again to think of marrying, and for this reason, I can never be satisfied with anyone who would be blockhead enough to have me.” Abraham Lincoln
From STILL LIFE WITH WOODPECKER -–Tom Robbins
Who knows how to make love stay?
1. Tell love you are going to Junior’s Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if love stays, it can have half. It will stay.
2. Tell love you want a memento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the burnt hair and use them to paint a mustache on your face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will stay.
3. Wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep. Love will be there in the morning.
i love you much(most beautiful darling)
more than anyone on the earth and i like you better than everything in the sky
-sunlight and singing welcome your coming
although winter may be everywhere with such a silence and such a darkness no one can quite begin to guess
(except my life)the true time of year-
and if what calls itself a world should have the luck to hear such singing(or glimpse such sunlight as will leap higher than high through gayer than gayest someone’s heart at your each
nearness)everyone certainly would(my most beautiful darling)believe in nothing but love
The Gift of Friendship....
Friendship is a priceless gift
That cannot be bought or sold
But its value is far greater
Than a mountain made of gold
For gold is cold and lifeless
It can neither see nor hear,
And in time of trouble
It is powerless to cheer~
It has no ears to listen,
No heart to understand,
It cannot bring you comfort,
Or reach out a helping hand
so, when you ask God for a gift
Be thankfulif He sends
Not diamonds, pearls or riches
But the love of real true friends.
Reading - SOUL MATES
As Soul Mates the purpose of marriage goes beyond just creating a new life together...
- It evokes one’s Intimate Soul, and stirs up the magic within that supplies a profound purpose for one’s existence and fulfillment.
- Finding one’s Soul Mate is to find someone to love completely, taking us into communion with a realm far beyond earthly life.
- More mysteriously, Soul Mates offer each other divine hope, an opportunity to enter, explore, and fulfill that that otherwise remains illusive fantasy.
- And ... marriage of Soul Mates is Holy, not only because it is a precious and revered way of joining human lives, but because it is a form of religion in itself - a special way in which spirituality pours into both lives, and beyond, into the families of each.
So you see, as Soul Mates, ______and ______ are highly aware of the influences they have over their extended families, their good friends and the responsibility of these relationships they take quite seriously.
Marriage Means Being In Love for the Rest of Your Life – (Chris Ardis)
Marriage is love walking hand in hand together. It’s laughing with each other about the little things, and learning to discuss big things with care and tenderness. In marriage it is trusting each other when you’re apart. It’s getting over disappointments and hurts, and knowing that these are present in all relationships. It’s the realization that there is no one else in this world that you’d rather be with than the one you’re married to. It’s thinking of new things to do together; It’s growing old together. Marriage is being in love for the rest of your life.
I Dreamed of a Wedding – Author Unknown
I dreamed of a wedding of elaborate elegance…
A church filled with flowers, friends and beautiful music…
I asked him what kind of a wedding he wished for…
He said one that would make me his wife.
From A Natural History Of Love By Diane Ackerman
Love. What a small word we use for an idea so immense and powerful. It has altered the flow of history, calmed monsters, kindled works of art, cheered the forlorn, turned tough guys to mush, consoled the enslaved, driven strong women mad, glorified the humble, fueled national scandals, bankrupted robber barons, and made mincemeat of kings. How can love's spaciousness be conveyed in the narrow confines of one syllable? Love is an ancient delirium, a desire older than civilization, with taproots spreading into deep and mysterious days. The heart is a living museum.
In each of its galleries, no matter how narrow or dimly lit, preserved forever like wondrous diatoms, are our moments of loving, and being loved.
From Gift From The Sea
By Anne Morrow Lindbergh
When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the
same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a
lie to pretend to. And yet this is exactly what most of us demand. We
have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of
relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its
ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on
duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as
in love, is in growth, in fluidity-in freedom in the sense that the
dancers are free, barely touching as they pass, but partners in the same
pattern.
Sonnet XLIII
By Elizabeth Barrett Browning
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candle-light.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints, -- I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! -- and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
Give All To Love by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Give all to love;
Obey thy heart;
Friends, kindred, days,
Estate, good fame,
Plans, credit, and the muse;
Nothing refuse.
'Tis a brave master,
Let it have scope,
Follow it utterly,
Hope beyond hope;
High and more high,
It dives into noon,
With wing unspent,
Untold intent;
But 'tis a god,
Knows its own path,
And the outlets of the sky.
'Tis not for the mean,
It requireth courage stout,
Souls above doubt,
Valor unbending;
Such 'twill reward,
They shall return
More than they were,
And ever ascending.
Leave all for love;--
Yet, hear me, yet,
One word more thy heart behoved,
One pulse more of firm endeavor,
Keep thee to-day,
To-morrow, for ever,
Free as an Arab
Of thy beloved.
Cling with life to the maid;
But when the surprise,
Vague shadow of surmise,
Flits across her bosom young
Of a joy apart from thee,
Free be she, fancy-free,
Do not thou detain a hem,
Nor the palest rose she flung
From her summer diadem.
Though thou loved her as thyself,
As a self of purer clay,
Tho' her parting dims the day,
Stealing grace from all alive,
Heartily know,
When half-gods go,
The gods arrive.
Reading Alernative (from Brides.com)
Instead of a traditional ceremony reading, have a friend read aloud notes and letters that you and your groom have written to each other during your relationship.
Khalil Gibran
Then Almitra spoke again and said,
And what of Marriage, Master?
And he answered saying:
You were born together,
and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when
the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in
the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens
dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between
the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread
but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous,
but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though
they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.
Marriage is a Daily Challenge by Sydney Barbara Metrick
Marriage is a daily challenge which must be met with acceptance, confidence, and awe. There is no way to understand how you will change and grow from day to day, no way to prepare for the enigmatic drama of life. In your past marriages, in your relationships with friends and family, and in the many experiences of your lives, you have learned tolerance, flexibility, and patience. You now both feel you have acquired and developed the necessary resources that will enable you to share your lives successfully. You are not afraid to make mistakes or to ask for help; and, most importantly, you do not expect every moment to be as perfect as those you are sharing right now.
Bride and Groom Love Poem (They face each other, holding hands)
With your hand in mine
We walk together,
our love so strong
yet so tender and free.
Our hearts beat as one and
our thoughts are beautiful
for as my eyes meet yours
there is no doubt
our lives have touched
and throughout all eternity
the beauty shall be there
as sure as the wind
as sure as we care
as sure as we love
"Beach Chairs" by Joyce Ebrecht
Sitting on the beach chairs
watching the setting sun
holding hands and reminiscing
how it all begun
Sitting on the beach chairs
watching the ships out on the sea
holding hands and smiling
together we're meant to be
Sitting on the beach chairs
watching people walking past
holding hands and knowing
that our love will always last
Sitting on the beach chairs
watching the waves along the shore
holding hands we realize
our love is stronger than before
Sitting on the beach chairs
watching the changing tide
holding hands with happiness
to be by each others side
Sitting on the beach chairs
watching the sunrise
holding hands with tears of joy
there are no more good-byes.
The Promise by Heather Berry
Within this blessed union of souls
Where two hearts intertwine to become one,
There lies a promise.
Perfectly born, divinely created, and intimately shared,
It is a place where the hope and majestyof beginnings reside.
Where all things are made possible
By the astounding love shared by two spirits.
As you hold each other's hands in this promise,
And eagerly look to the future in each other's eyes,
May your unconditional love and devotion
Take you to places of which you've both only dreamed,
Where you'll dwellfor a lifetime of happiness
Sheltered in the warmthof each other's arms.
REAL LOVE by Daphne Rose Kingma
For it is in loving, as well as in being loved, that we become most truly ourselves. No matter what we do, say, accomplish, or become, it is our capacity to love that ultimately defines us. In the end, nothing we do or say in this lifetime will matter as much as the way we have loved one another.
ABUNDANCE AND DELIGHT - author unknown
Treat yourselves and each other with respect, and remind yourselves often of what brought you together. Give the highest priority to the tenderness, gentleness and kindness that your connection deserves. When frustration, difficulties and fear assail your relationship - remember to focus on what is right between you, not only the part which seems wrong. In this way, you can ride out the storms when clouds hide the face of the sun in your lives - remembering that even if you lose sight of it for a moment, the sun is still there. And if each of you takes responsibility for the quality of your life together, it will be marked by abundance and delight.
CHERISH EVERY MOMENT by Leslie A.Neilson
Today is the beginning of a dream.
A day where two souls are woven together.
Cherish every moment that life offers.
And celebrate every small pleasure.
Express your love at every chance.
And allow it to unfold gracefully.
Show your devotion and dedicate your lives
to the enrichment of each other.
Strive always for honesty and integrity.
Build upon your marriage daily.
And seek to understand each other.
But above all this...
Draw upon the love you feel today
and forever etch it in your hearts.
IN MARRIAGE by Julia Escobar
Cherish each other
in big ways and in small ways,
and never forget the magic
of those three little words: "I love you".
In marriage, remember that
it is the little things that make the difference...
Don't forget the birthdays and the anniversaries.
An occasional note means a lot.
Share each other's life - even the small details -
for too often we forget
that day-after-day becomes
year-after-year, and then it's gone.
Give each other room to grow...
We all need our time alone.
Keep strong your faith in each other;
time has a funny way of testing us,
and it's faith that gets us through.
Respect one another...
This world could always use more of that.
Speak your mind honestly, openly,
but with kindness,
for angry words are scars that may never heal.
Trust each other;
let your trust be your rock.
Most of all, each day...
be sure to hold each other
and fall in love all over again.
The Perfect love, The Perfect friend – Renee Duvall
Because you are my love… I know the joy that comes from feeling closer to someone than I’ve ever felt before.
Because you are my love… I know the passion of wanting to share everything I have, everything I am with you and only you.
Because you are my friend.... I know that I can count on you to hold my hand through the rough times and to be there to share the good times too.
Because you are my friend… I’ll always have someone to make me smile just when I need it most, and to encourage me when I’m feeling confused or doubtful.
I know that I must be one of the luckiest people in the world to have someone like you.
The perfect love, the perfect friend.
I Promise – Dorothy R. Colgan
I promise to give you the best of myself and to ask of you no more than you can give.
I promise to respect you as your own person and to realize that your interests, desires and needs are no less important than my own.
I promise to share with you my time and my attention and to bring joy, strength and imagination to our relationship.
I promise to keep myself open to you, to let you see through the window of my world into my innermost fears and feelings, secrets and dreams.
I promise to grow along with you, to be willing to face changes in order to keep our relationship alive and exciting.
I promise to love you in good times and in bad, with all I have to give and all I feel inside in the only way I know how.
Completely and forever.
Lau Tzu, “Transforming Power”
Your love contains the power
Of a thousand suns.
It unfolds as naturally and effortlessly
As does a flower,
And graces the world with its blooming.
Its beauty radiates a transforming energy
That enlivens all who see it.
Because of you, compassion and joy
Are added to the world.
That is why the stars sing together
Because of your love.
Chief Dan George
Love is something you and I must have. We must have it because our spirit feeds upon it. We must have it because without it we become weak and faint. Without love our self-esteem weakens. Without it our courage fails. Without love we can no longer look out confidently at the world. We turn inward and begin to feed upon our own personalities, and little by little we destroy ourselves.
With it we are creative. With it we march tirelessly. With it, and with it alone, we are able to sacrifice for others.
Shakespeare Sonnet CXVI
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds.
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O, no! It is an ever fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken.
It is the star to every wandering bark
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
Excerpt from the I Ching
But when two people are as one
In their innermost hearts,
They shatter even the strength
Of iron or of bronze.
And when two people understand each other
In their innermost hearts,
Their words are sweet and strong
Like the fragrance of orchids.
Prophet - Kahlil Gibran
Your were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.