Weddings 101
Now that you’ve made the decision, it’s about time to start thinking about the wedding. Weddings come in many shapes and sizes: big and small, formal and casual, and they join couples of many kinds in many places with many different types of people officiating.
What is a Wedding?
A wedding celebrates the love shared between two individuals. It is also the ceremonial act during which two people commit to one another publicly. A wedding is a joyous occasion, a day of recognition and affirmation of the great love a couple shares. It provides a way for the couple’s community to affirm their support for that relationship and the family the couple builds together, and for the couple to affirm the importance of their community in upholding their life together. And even beyond that, a wedding is a sacred ritual that reminds us that the Holy is present wherever there is great love.
Marriage both acknowledges an emotional bond between two people, and strengthens that bond one that is made in the company of a community of people, usually family and friends that acknowledge that bond and agree to support the couple in their joined lives. While weddings can and should be fun, they are also one of the most important occasions in a couple’s life together, and they can get complicated. Yet even with this “stressful adventure,” a wedding ceremony is a unique and beautiful celebration that expresses all that is in the hearts of the couple, their friends and their families.
CLF Nominating Committee Seeks Leaders
The Church of the Larger Fellowship Nominating Committee seeks CLF/CYF members to run for positions on the Board of Directors beginning June 2012. Read more →
Thanks! You Did It!
In an enormous show of support, CLF friends rallied to meet the CLF’s $30,000 Year End 2012 Challenge Fund. Gifts and new pledges during that time were matched by an unprecedented initiative taken by the CLF Board and a very special group of CLF friends.
Memorial Services
Whatever may happen after death, we know that our lives continue on in the memories of those who loved us, and whose lives we touched. Memorial services are celebrations of life, at time to honor the loved one who has passed, and to affirm the bonds of community, memory and hope that sustain us in sorrow. Memorial services bring healing most powerfully when they call to mind the full reality of the person who has died, treasuring the person’s gifts and honestly acknowledging their failings. The leader of the service can create a narrative of the deceased life by listening to stories that family members and close friends have to tell and weaving those stories and the themes they bring out into the eulogy. However, it is also powerful to invite those in attendance to share their own stories, memorializing the person who has died in a very personal way.
Below are examples of elements you may wish to include in a memorial service.
Coming of Age
Across religions and cultures people honor the transition from childhood to adulthood with ritual. For Unitarian Universalists this coming of age ceremony is usually the culmination of a process that involves the young person meeting with a mentor, studying the history of our liberal faith and, most importantly, creating a statement of beliefs to share with their congregation. Rather that asking young people to affirm a creed, we ask them to think carefully about what they hold to be true, and the principles that guide their choices. Families which do not belong to local congregations may, however, wish to create a ceremony with and for a young people who are coming into their full capacity to choose their religious beliefs. Also, check out this podcast from The VUU where our guests talk about Coming of Age.
Below are examples of various elements you may wish to include in a coming of age ceremony.
Baby/Child Dedications
When a child joins a family through birth or adoption, not only is that family forever changed, but also the community in which that family lives is widened and enriched. Because baptism is conceived of as a sacrament that washes away the stain of original sin, and Unitarian Universalists affirm the inherent worth of every person rather than their innate sinfulness, we do not baptize children (or adults). We do, however, ceremonially welcome babies and older children into this world, and into the community which holds them, offering our lifelong commitment to the nurture of each child. A baby dedication is a joyful ritual which affirms that each new person is a gift and which celebrates the covenant of family and community.
Below are examples of various elements you might wish to include in a baby dedication ceremony.
Gratitude
November 2011
“Giving thanks for abundance is sweeter than the abundance itself.”—Rumi
Articles
The Deep Thanksgiving of Our Souls
I have wonderful neighbors who delight in garish inflatable yard decorations. We love these neighbors, but would question their taste if they did not question it for us. Read more »
To Be Joyfully Determined
Recall a time when things weren’t going well for you, when you didn’t feel quite right, didn’t feel quite like yourself; a time when you couldn’t hear the still, small voice, or when its song was faint… Read more »
Aspects of Gratitude
Gratitude is an attitude and there are aspects of it that I would not have realized if I had not come to prison. At least not in the same way. Read more »
CLF Nominating Committee Seeks Leaders
The Church of the Larger Fellowship Nominating Committee seeks CLF/CYF members to run for positions on the Board of Directors beginning June 2012. Read more »
From Your Minister
As a kid, I loved the idea of the Indians and the Pilgrims having a happy feast together. Read more »
REsources for Living
If you’ve been paying close attention you might remember that back in May I wrote about how it felt a bit odd to be talking about gratitude when it wasn’t November, the month in which we celebrate Thanksgiving. Read more »
Blessing
Thanksgiving is blessing. And blessing is mindfulness. And so, blest are each of you, you who are precisely who you are and no one else. Read more »
Thanks! You Did It!
Thanks to your generous donations, we met our target! The CLF was thrilled to see the enormous effort that CLF members and CLF friends all over the world made to help us achieve this goal. Read more »
Quest
October 2011
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”—Marcel Proust
Articles
On Pilgrimage
All religious traditions encourage pilgrimages. They ask the faithful to leave familiar surroundings and daily routine, to travel unencumbered on a journey that can reveal both wisdom and insight. Read more »
The Art of Walking
The art of Walking…sauntering: which word is beautifully derived “from idle people who roved about the country… Read more »
Prophesy from the Hopi Nation
You have been telling the people That this is the eleventh hour. Now, you must go and tell the people That THIS is the hour, And there are things to be considered. Read more »
Prodigal Songs
It was three and a half years ago when Unitarian Universalists changed my life. Read more »
From Your Minister
It is possible that the next Buddha will not take the form of an individual. The next Buddha may take the form of a community… Read more »
REsources for Living
What comes to mind when you hear the word “quest”? Knights of the Round Table riding off in search of the Holy Grail? King Pellinore on his eternal search for the Questing Beast? Read more »
Another Kind of Knowledge (Excerpt)
To surrender oneself willingly to truth, to earn it, in every sense, to allow a voice to the great unbegotten mystery and, beyond that, to listen, is asking for trouble. Read more »
Quest
“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.”—Marcel Proust Read more »
Forgiveness
September 2011
“Without forgiveness there is no future.”—Desmond Tutu
Articles
A Pattern So Vast
I still use the copy of The Joy of Cooking I got for Christmas in 1969. This now-fragile cookbook has memories stained into many of its pages (especially the peanut-butter cookie page). Read more »
Finding Our Place in the World
It was the third summer of my seminary training, and I was completing the required “Clinical Pastoral Education” by serving as a student chaplain in a women’s prison near Tacoma, Washington. Read more »
The stories we tell…
The stories we tell of heaven and hell are not about how we die, but about how we live. Read more »
From Your Minister
I have mentioned my garden in past columns—how much joy and life I find there and how central to my spiritual practice it is from spring through fall. Read more »
REsources for Living
I’ve been thinking about the Days of Turning, the ten days between Rosh Hashana (September 28th this year) and Yom Kippur. Rosh Hashana is the Jewish New Year… Read more »
Indian Boy Love Song #1
Everyone I have lost… in the closing of a door… the click of the lock… Read more »
Abundance
July-August 2011
“This could be our revolution: to love what is plentiful as much as what is scarce.”—Alice Walker
Articles
to Attend
