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Finding the Right Words |
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January 6th, 2009 by BridalBuds
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Alright my fine, petaled, friends, I come to you in search of wedding readings. I currently have only one… and a comic strip. Yah.
NOW. Before you start filling my comments full of 1st Corinthians, I feel like it’s only fair for me to lay my cards on the table. I’m an atheist. I’m looking for wedding appropriate readings (that I haven’t heard already at someone else’s wedding) that have nothing, nothing at all, to do with a God.
It may not be hard to imagine that in the-land-of-all-things-wedding, I’m not always received with open arms. I’m finding it especially difficult getting feedback, as my family isn’t much for weddings (they want to know why I haven’t already been to the court house and think all of ‘this stuff’ is unnecessary) and Pansy Dude’s family isn’t much for ‘ye of little faith’. Personally, I consider my wedding to be an inter-faith marriage. Maybe not in the traditional sense, but Pansy Dude was raised Christian and to be atheist is not to say that I am faithless, rather my faith lies different things.
That said- the one reading that I have, and LOVE LOVE LOVE, and my Pansy little brother is reading is from the Velveteen Rabbit.
“What is REAL?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were
lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came
to tidy the room. “Does it mean having
things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a
thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long,
long time, not just to play with, but Really
loves you, then you become Real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always
truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” he asked,
“or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You
become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t happen
often to people who break easily, or have sharp
edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the
time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and
your eyes drop out and you get all loose in
the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at
all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to
people who don’t understand.”
I would appreciate all the positive feedback/ideas/options that you can muster!! I’d really like to have one or two more.
Thanks very much you lovely ladies, you.
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Categories: Archived, Nontraditional, Wedding Planning |
11 Comments |
January 6th, 2009 at 8:30 am
So,
I was recently in a wedding for my future brother in law. I am getting married this July 18. The passage that you are having your younger brother read is quite unique. Until recently I have never really thought to have a children’s book reading. I also read this passage on Saturday. It has quite a meaning but in order to understand it you must look deeper then the words. I like it!!!! As for anything else for readings maybe research some poems. William Shakespeare… that kind of thing….
January 6th, 2009 at 9:25 am
I’m planning to incorporate poetry into our wedding in several ways and I have collected several poems I think are appropriate for our relationship. Here is one of my favorites, and I think it would work well as a reading if it fits your relationship.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love,
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls,
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup,
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf,
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music,
Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping,
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts,
And stand together yet not too near together,
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow. ”
Khalil Gibran
January 6th, 2009 at 10:32 am
I love this passage! Two of my very good friends used this reading for their wedding ceremony as well. His little cousin read the scene and it was so nice. I love how it distills love down to the very basic emotions and how it makes you feel.
I would love to use this reading as well for my wedding. But since we’ll have lots of repeat friends from my friends’ wedding, I sadly can’t. So I’m trying to find some other children’s book passage that would work as well.
And word! to the no Corinthians! For every wedding we’ve been to that’s done that reading, my FI and I immediately start whispering along, a la “Wedding Crashers”.
Junages last blog post..Halloween Part 3: Party On!
January 7th, 2009 at 2:32 am
We’re atheists too, so I know exactly what you mean… We’re planning on using an edited excerpt from Courtney E. Martin’s “Why Love is Our Most Powerful, Lasting Form of Activism,” an online article from an independent media site:
“bell hooks, the guru of love as revolution, wrote: “The moment we chose to love we begin to move towards freedom.” I think she’s wrong, but not by much… It is the moment we critically and consciously choose how to shape our love that we move towards freedom. It is a critical response to our commercialized culture of romance, a rejection of that which feels outdated, a vision of a more inclusive, more authentic, more liberating relationship. In fact, the moment we choose to shape our love is the first, most critical step in shaping the whole damn world.”
The whole article is at http://www.alternet.org/sex/47779/?page=1
January 7th, 2009 at 12:18 pm
I am with you on the readings, and will be paying close attention to the suggestions people give. I do not want Corinthians, but want at least one nice reading. I’ve been looking at poems, and a few are contenders, but I haven’t yet found “the one”. Here’s a site I’ve used, but be warned – there are a ton of pop-up advertisements, which is annoying. But it’s a huge collection.
http://www.lovepoemsandquotes.com/LovePoems.html
And here’s another one I’m thinking about:
Two birds begin a journey long,
From different points in far off lands;
With a luring urge – in heart a song,
Two novices heed life’s commands.
As they make their great migration,
Their feeble feet turn to taloned hands;
And the two reach their destination
As seasoned travelers in the northern lands.
Still unaware that the other lives,
Each alights upon the very same tree;
And there the two, as if guided by God,
Fall madly in love and marry.
Thus so it is with [Bride and Groom];
Two birds which Heaven’s winds did blow
To this blessed rendezvous of life,
Like the two birds at Capistrano.
January 7th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Here’s a poem from Helen Steiner Rice:
“Give Lavishly! Live Abundantly”
The more you give, the more you get,
The more you laugh, the less you fret,
The more you do unselfishly,
The more you live abundantly.
The more of everything you share,
The more you’ll always have to spare,
The more you love, the more you’ll find
That life is good and friends are kind.
For what we give away, enriches us from day to day
“The Magic of Love”
Love is like magic and it always will be,
for love still remains life’s sweet mystery!
Love works in ways that are wondrous and strange
and there’s nothing in life that love cannot change!
Love can trnasform the most commonplace
into beauty and splendor and sweetness and grace!
Love is unselfish, understanding and kind,
for it sees with its heart and not with its mind!
Love is the answer that everyone seeks-
Love is the language that every heart speaks-
Love can’t be bought, it is priceless and free,
Love like pure magic is a sweet mystery!
I’m not sure these will work , but I thought I’d share them with you. Best wishes on your up and coming nupitals
January 7th, 2009 at 3:53 pm
Hi Pansy Bud,
We’re not very religious our selves, and i think I’m going to ask someone to read this poem. It’s not too long, and beautiful!
i carry your heart with me
by e. e. cummings
i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)
January 10th, 2009 at 5:57 pm
Some of our readings were already mentioned, but I’d thought I’d toss out my favorite poet Pablo Neruda. I’m always moved by his love poems.
“Sonnet XVII”
I don’t love you as if you were the salt-rose, topaz
or arrow of carnations that propagate fire:
I love you as certain dark things are loved,
secretly, between the shadow and the soul.
I love you as the plant that doesn’t bloom and carries
hidden within itself the light of those flowers,
and thanks to your love, darkly in my body
lives the dense fragrance that rises from the earth.
I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where,
I love you simply, without problems or pride:
I love you in this way because I don’t know any other way of loving
but this, in which there is no I or you,
so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand,
so intimate that when I fall asleep it is your eyes that close.
“Love”
So many days, oh so many days
Seeing you so tangible and so close,
How do I pay, with what do I pay?
The bloodthirsty spring
Has awakened in the woods.
The foxes start from their earths,
The serpents drink the dew
Between the pines and the silence,
Asking myself how and when
I will have to pay for my luck.
Of everything I have seen,
It’s you I want to go on seeing;
Of everything I’ve touched,
It’s your flesh I want to go on touching.
I love your orange laughter.
I am moved by the sight of you sleeping.
What am I to do, love, loved one?
I don’t know how others love
Or how people loved in the past.
I live, watching you, loving you.
Being in love is my nature.
You please me more each afternoon.
Where is she? I keep on asking
If your eyes disappear.
How long she’s taking! I think, and I’m hurt.
I feel poor, foolish and sad,
And you arrive and you are lightning
Glancing off the peach trees.
That’s why I love you and yet not why.
There are so many reasons, and yet so few,
For love has to be so,
Involving and general,
Particular and terrifying,
Honoured and yet in mourning,
Flowering like the stars,
And measureless as a kiss.
January 19th, 2009 at 5:37 pm
My friend suggested The Little Prince where the Prince meets the fox. I am not using it but it seemed liked it went with what you are looking for…
http://pages.sbcglobal.net/bluestripe/little_prince_meets_the_fox.htm
January 20th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
Thank you all so much. What wonderful suggestions!
February 12th, 2009 at 11:52 am
I’ve found one I love. I want to thank everyone so much for all the amazing ideas and suggestions. You knocked my socks off. Heres my 2nd reading:
From Still Life with Woodpecker by Tom Robbins
“Who knows how to make love stay?
1. Tell love you are going to Junior’s Deli on Flatbush Avenue in Brooklyn to pick up a cheesecake, and if love stays, it can have half. It will stay.
2. Tell love you want a memento of it and obtain a lock of its hair. Burn the hair in a dime-store incense burner with yin/yang symbols on three sides. Face southwest. Talk fast over the burning hair in a convincingly exotic language. Remove the ashes of the burnt hair and use them to paint a mustache on your face. Find love. Tell it you are someone new. It will stay.
3. Wake love up in the middle of the night. Tell it the world is on fire. Dash to the bedroom window and pee out of it. Casually return to bed and assure love that everything is going to be all right. Fall asleep. Love will be there in the morning.”
I’m pretty sure it’s perfect. What do you all think?