"Thank you so much for helping to make our wedding a forever memory."

The rain let up the other day just long enough for Greta and Heather to have their wedding ceremony.  It was just the three of us down by Lake Champlain.  Because of the weather, there was nobody about, and the lake was grey and choppy and kept threatening to splash up and soak their matrimonial garb.

They’ve been together for years.  They met because Greta is a horse trainer, and Heather used to ride with her.  Then they became friends, and much later, lovers.

Our original get-to-know-you chat was a Skype video call, and I was struck throughout by how loving and physically affectionate they were with each other.  During the ceremony, they spent the entire time gazing into each others’ eyes.  Frequently, couples mostly look at me while I’m reading, but these two only had eyes for each other.

All love changes and evolves over time, but let these two be an example that passion need not fade.

For part of the ceremony, they had me read Desiderata by Max Erhmann.  I remember my high school English teacher giving everyone in my class a copy of it when we graduated, but I don’t think I’d read it since then.

It’s a lovely paragraph of what would be technically be known as Very Good Advice, and I was particularly moved by this bit from the end:

Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself. You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should. Therefore, be at peace with God, whatever you conceive Him to be. And whatever your labors and aspirations in the noisy confusion of life, keep peace in your soul. With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams; it is still a beautiful world.

Keep peace in your soul because no matter what, it’s still a beautiful world.  We don’t need much more spiritual practice than that.