An unseasonably warm afternoon in Nashville, Tennessee. We are lounging around Mechelle and Jonathan’s living room. St. Mary is studying estate law, Lane is reading on the web instead of his Jonathan Edwards biography, Jonathan is almost asleep in his tuxedo, Mechelle is humming with the music and reading a novel surrounded by three dachshunds. This morning we all got dressed up and went to Centennial Park near Vanderbilt University to celebrate the marriage of Nate and Valerie. It was simple and easy and fun. I had the honor of being the officiant at the ceremony because I have been ordained in the Church of Dudeism. So by the power vested in me by The Dude, I performed the following ceremony. Congratulations Valerie and Nate.

Valerie and Nate

Family and friends, welcome to the wedding of Nate and Valerie. They are happy that you are here to share this special moment with them, and they have decided to keep the ceremony itself quite simple and brief. The celebration of their marriage, however, will continue throughout the day, and they invite you to join them in these less formal ceremonies as well. And now to the formal ceremony of marriage.

[Nate places ring on Valerie’s finger]

Nate, do you take Valerie to be your lawfully wedded wife? Do you promise to love, comfort, honor and keep her, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. And forsaking all others, be faithful to her so long as you both shall live?”

[Valerie places ring on Nate’s finger]

Valerie, do you take Nate to be your lawfully wedded husband? Do you promise to love, comfort, honor and keep him, for better or worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health. And forsaking all others, be faithful to him so long as you both shall live?”

When viewed from outer space, the earth appears fragile and lonely, a blue orb hanging in the immense darkness that threatens to engulf it. This is our home, and our lives here are also fragile and lonely as we navigate our way through the uncertainty and fear that accompany us on our journey here. We find our way through the mazes of childhood and adolescence, adulthood and old age, stopping along the way to reflect, to learn, to cry, to laugh, to suffer and to love. It is a hard journey to be sure, but it is uniquely ours as human beings on this planet, and we travel through this land of nightmares that is also a land of miracles. To be alive and on this planet is miracle enough, but when we find a fellow traveler, someone who has traveled the same paths, experienced the same losses and joys, and shares our story, we have found something more than a miracle—we have found the sacred. All our journeys are better with a companion, and when we find someone who is willing to undertake the journey with us, the world is full of possibility and meaning, and we are at our best as men, as women, as human beings on our fragile and beautiful home. Today we celebrate this very moment with Valerie and Nate and witness and affirm that they have found the sacred in each other. And we invoke that old traveler Walt Whitman who wrote:

Fellow traveler! I give you my hand!
I give you my love, more precise than money,
I give you myself, before preaching or law; 
Will you give me yourself? will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live? 

Valerie and Nate, by the power vested in me by the state of Tennessee, I now pronounce you husband and wife.

 

Lane, Mary, Mechelle, and Jonathan