the "M word"

"The 'M word' matters. It confers social standing, it confers social acceptance, it confers legitimacy of relationships, and you cannot have equality without it."

 -Bonnie Tinker

this past weekend, alex and laura had their long anticipated wedding in the gorge, which was absolutely beautiful-- not only the aesthetic details which were mindblowingly abundant, but also the congregation of loving people there to gather and celebrate their commitment to each other. i had the honor of speaking about marriage equality during the ceremony, and saying a few words about how proud and overjoyed bonnie would be to witness it. i almost lost it for a minute there, but was able to hold it together. 

paul tinkerhess, who happens to be adah's new favorite human because of his ability to connectwith her so well, spoke about quaker traditions and the spiritual aspects of marriage. he is a poet, and here are his words:

Alex and Laura, family and guests….

I’m honored to be here today for this happy occasion, the commitment of Alex and Laura to a shared life together. I’ve been asked to share some of the little I know about the spiritual aspects of marriage, particularly what the Quaker tradition might have to offer to this couple, and to this community of their friends and family.  As many of you know, Alex’s mother Bonnie, my dear sister, was active among Quakers here in Portland and across the country.

You two are finding your own new and beautiful path, of course, which is as natural as evolution itself.  Especially in this time, copying the practices, the tools for a happy marriage, or your vocations from anyone living or dead may not be sufficient to the present challenge.  Life’s best hope for the future may be for young, bright individuals such as yourselves to aggressively detach your life rafts from the sinking remnants of the dominant paradigm, invent a wholly new set of navigational charts, fashion a compass truer than any currently available, and lead any who are not yet hopelessly lost toward a better world.  Go forth with our blessings and protected by the force field of admiration and envy in which we all hold you today.

But in the few minutes before I am jettisoned, along with my -- and all previous generations’ -- ballast, I want to give you something I’ve found useful toward the goal of staying afloat as you seek your destination through what are sometimes choppy waters.

As many of you may know, Quakers traditionally gather for worship in silence.   We try to settle our thoughts, or “center down”, to find a still place that we feel might give access to what we call “that of God within”.  The key tenet of our faith is that every person has that kind of sacred part. 

So we gather in silence, usually seated facing one another, with no pulpit and no minister.

During a Quaker meeting, if any should sense a leading from within that rises to the level of a prompting to speak, they stand and offer a bit of vocal ministry during the worship.

But it’s what comes after someone speaks in a Quaker meeting that I want to highlight today.  It is the listening, the discipline of pondering what another has revealed in a way that promotes understanding.

When one is settled into a pool of silence that seems to reach the shores of every continent in the universe, that seems to wash against the very source of creation, it is possible to hear even the most foreign, even contrary, insight and delight in the privilege of expanding one’s awareness into the heart and mind of another made vulnerable and transparent. It may be as if others had replaced your eyes with theirs, making your awareness larger, like the eyes of a bumble bee with hundreds of different but equally valid points of view, elevating, if we’re lucky, the levels of compassion and the collective intelligence of life on earth.

In the Quaker view, today Alex and Laura are marrying themselves.  Marriage is not something done to them, or fundamentally permitted or licensed to them, from without: they, in the presence of the spirit of god, are the authors, the “authority” of their relationship.  We are witnesses, and now caretakers for this new flowering of creation.  A Quaker wedding is said to be held “under the care” of the Meeting.  Today, as in a traditional Quaker wedding, Laura and Alex would like all of us to sign the beautiful wedding certificate at the back, which will serve in their home as testimony to this community of support.

Of course this practice, this discipline of meeting of other souls in a place of respect and honesty, a place of safe vulnerability, of affirmation of common humanity, is not exclusive to Quaker worship.  It is available as a tool for all of us to use any time we feel a need to strengthen our connections to each other, to the power of love which radiates from the very source of existence.

So best of luck, you two.  I thank you, on behalf of all of us, for sailing into commitment and faith against the winds of transience and cynicism. And if the balance of oneness and twoness ever swings dangerously toward the pride or insecurity born of the illusion of individuality, I pray that you will strive to settle into that place within that connects you to all even across time, and most deeply to one another.

adah, frances, maryia, and kendell were the flower girls, and they all made it down the aisle with little smiles on their faces. at the last minute bug gave up her job as ring bearer, and this seemed to take away some of the pressure. we've been playing "the morning after" for days, discussing all the joys of the celebration. the week of festivities culminated in an uproarious quaker sing-along with all the out-of town relatives. so happy to be a part of this extended musical family.

alex and laura, we love you both and wish you the best!