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Walter
Muma & Julie Liptak
Wedding
September 23, 2006 |
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We managed to fit 41 people into our
living room! |
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The entrance. |
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Our long-time friend, Peter Wiinholt,
acted as MC and facilitator for the ceremony. |
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Connie Webster, our friend and
Walter's cousin from Pennsylvania, read the Wedding Prayer,
by Robert Louis Stevenson:
Lord, behold our family,
friends and neighbours here assembled.
We thank you for this place in which we dwell,
for the love that unites us,
for the peace accorded us this day,
for the hope with which we expect the morrow,
for the health, the work, the food,
and the bright skies that make our lives delightful;
for our friends in all parts of the earth.
Amen
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Julie's high school friend, Dora Pepall,
read from Corinthians:13
If I speak in the
tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong
or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand
all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to
remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away
all I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not
love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not
arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way; it is not
irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices
in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all
things, endures all things.
Love never ends; as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for
tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For
our knowledge is imperfect and our prophecy is imperfect; but when
the perfect comes, the imperfect will pass away. When I was a child,
I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a
child; when I became an adult I gave up childish ways. For now we
see through a glass darkly, but then face to face. Now I know in
part; then I shall understand fully, even as I have been fully
understood. So faith, hope, love abide, these three; but the
greatest of these is love.
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Damon Muma, Walter's cousin's son,
read from The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran, On Marriage:
You were born together, and together you shall be
forevermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your
days.
Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness,
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
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.
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Our friend Jason Hurd then read a
prayer by St. Francis of Assisi:
Lord, make us
instruments of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let us sow love;
Where there is injury, pardon;
Where there is discord, union;
Where there is doubt, faith;
Where there is despair, hope;
Where there is darkness, light;
Where there is sadness, joy;
O Divine Master, Grant that we may not so much seek
To be consoled as to console;
To be understood as to understand;
To be loved as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive;
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned;
And it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.
Amen
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Exchange of rings and vows. Peter
Wiinholt then read a Marriage Prayer:
Spirit of God,
in whom we live and move and have our being,
you have given us life
and the grace of human love that draws us to each other.
Today, we hold Julie and Walter in our hearts and in prayer for
their life together.
We are thankful for the joy they find in each other,
and for the hope they have expressed in their promises.
May they always be strengthened
to keep the vows they have made,
to cherish the life they share,
and to honour each other in love and friendship.
Bless them in their companionship,
and when their time on earth is over,
grant that they may look back in joy
at lives well lived, hearts mended, justice honoured,
mercy done, and the world transformed
by the witness of their love.
May Walter and Julie build a home together
to withstand every storm,
a place of warmth and welcome,
where anyone may see
the strength and beauty of their love.
Holy One, we pray your blessing on all our homes and families,
that they may be shielded from turmoil and threat,
and become places of mutual encouragement and support.
We hold in prayer all who struggle
to maintain relationships in the midst of trouble,
and in the face of indifference and hostility.
We hold tenderly in our hearts all who live in aching loneliness,
or the fear of it.
O God, whose name is love,
may we be agents of love in a hurting world,
that all may know your embrace.
We pray in your holy presence. Amen.
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At the end our long-time friend Tim Martens read
to us a native Indian blessing: Walter and Julie…
May the sun bring you new energies by day,
May the moon softly restore you by night,
May the rain wash away any worries you may have,
And the breeze blow new strength into your being,
And then, all the days of your life,
May you walk gently through the world,
and know its beauty and yours.
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And then Peter Wiinholt presented us
as a couple to the assembled guests. |
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