Wedding Muse
As many of you will know, it was my privilege to perform the wedding ceremony for our son, Kurt, and his new bride, Lindsay, last weekend. What a blessing!
In the past four years, I’ve performed three weddings for our children, a funeral for my father, and welcomed the birth of our first grandchild. “Marry, bury, and baptize,” as my college roommate used to speak about the ministry. Though I didn’t baptize my granddaughter, I can’t help but reflect on the deeply spiritual nature of these seminal life moments. It is a blessed privilege to have shared them with my family. In the midst of a life filled with events, most of which matter little, these are the moments that remind us how precious, transitory, beautiful — and big — life is. I feel like Tinkerbell, whose feeling of love was so big she had to grow up to feel it.
I don’t suppose Hook, the source of that Tinkerbell scene, is a great movie, but it looms large in our family’s imagination. We first saw it on the VCR (remember those?) in my dad’s living room. Our kids were all less than ten years old at the time. I was deeply moved by the portrayal of a grown man (Peter Pan/Banning) who’d forgotten how much joy there was in being a father. Watching that movie with my kids reminded me that, just like Peter, the “happy thought” which makes us “fly” is the birth of our children.
I was flying last weekend. We rented a large home so we could all stay together: grandparents and cousins, aunts and uncles, siblings and groomsmen. Kurt said the rehearsal dinner prayer, and our son-in-law (Matt) prayed with the groomsmen just before the wedding. I played wiffle ball with the guys on Kurt’s wedding day, and pulled two muscles in the meantime. Yes, there are serious drawbacks to getting older; but if it’s the price you pay to see your kids pray together and play together, who cares?
As the processional began, Kurt surprised his mother by saying, “Mom, let me escort you down the aisle.” The emotional floodgates were officially opened. I proudly followed behind, and the two of us ascended the platform to begin the ceremony. The bridal party entered one-by-one, and our daughter pulled her daughter, along with another nephew, down the aisle in a red wagon.
The doors opened. The people stood. The bride entered. Lindsay looked luminous as she walked down the aisle, and the groom next to me was overwhelmed with emotion. So was the minister next to him. But both made it through it.
The joy on our beloved children’s faces was palpable as they made their vows to one another. No doubt they felt a bit like Tinkerbell, bursting with a feeling too big to feel. I certainly felt like Peter Pan. I’m still flying.