Wedding #2: Where worlds collide

Wedding Week #2 is underway! Our mothers have been wonderful about planning some of the details of this event so that Michael and I could focus on getting our house ready for guests and, oh yeah, planning the ceremony for Saturday! Our plan for Saturday is to be pretty laid back, not nearly as formal as the California wedding. We'll do a short ceremony mid-afternoon, probably have some toasts, but otherwise plan to just hang out, with not much of a program. We just want to be with people! We are looking forward to that part quite a lot.

In the midst of all our thinking about that, I thought I should also check in with the doctor and see if my mastectomy ever got on the schedule. (Story of my life.) I had put in a request for October 15 a month ago, but never heard back. So yesterday I called. The nurse who called me back was one of our favorites - such that we had invited her to our wedding! She was the nurse who, during my first biopsy, had held my hand and chatted with me about life and faith, calming me down during what was a very emotional procedure. She was the nurse who bought us a wedding gift - something she saw and thought we should have. Really a sweet lady. So we talked about some medical stuff, then I asked if we would see her on Saturday. She said yes, both she and Dr. Skinner had it on their calendars! I was so tickled. I guess they probably don't get to experience many joyous events with their patients, so this is probably a real treat for them.

When we first started talking, I was fine. I have had October 15th in my head for my next mastectomy for months, and even though I don't want to do it, I know that it is necessary if I want to try to get pregnant and not get cancer instead. Only once have I really felt weepy about this. But now suddenly the nurse was talking about the MRI, and the pre-op, and all that stuff... and I started to feel sick to my stomach.

I have had in my head all this time that this would be easy, easier than the last one. I know what to expect, I know I can do it, I know what it's going to look like on the other side. Since it will be so much easier emotionally (I thought), I thought surely it would be easier physically and logistically. But now it's all coming back to me: surgery sucks no matter how many times you have it. It's painful. It makes you feel ill. It prevents you from moving or sleeping how you like. And worst of all, this particular surgery makes me not have boobs. And I rather like boobs. Or should I say, boob. It feels weird and different. I don't wanna.

But, you gotta do what you gotta do. It'll happen, and I can pout all I want, but it'll be just fine in the end. So I pulled up my socks and went about my day.

Today I got another call from the doctor. It seems my MRI needs to happen between day 7 and 14 of my cycle, which I'm in right now. And my periods are so erratic that I might not be at this point in my cycle again until sometime in October, which is too late to get the requisite MRI a couple weeks in advance of the mastectomy. (The purpose of the MRI is to make sure my right breast is still cancer free, because if there is cancer, then how we go about the mastectomy will be different and more invasive.) So I need to get the MRI this week. The only time available is Thursday night at 9:30pm. 9:30pm?? They do MRIs then? Apparently so. So now, instead of spending Thursday night with my brother and sister-in-law, who are flying in from Houston around dinner time, I will be at the hospital making sure I don't have cancer. Not how expected wedding weekend part II to go.

I can't help but think about my last MRI, which I had on April 1, the day of my bridal shower. It was such a beautiful day, and I found out that day that the scan had been clear. But then two days later I found out I had cancer again after all. And I think about how when I came in to see my surgeon after that, and after we'd given her an invite for the wedding, her first words were, "So am I uninvited?" The fact that the park in which we chose to hold this shindig is a stone's throw from the hospital is also not lost on me.

How would I feel if I had this MRI on Thursday, and then sometime on Friday, while we are arranging flowers and greeting people as they arrive into town and getting ready for Saturday, someone calls me to say, "Sorry, but you need to come in for a biopsy next week"? I know the what-if game rarely if ever yields positive results, but really - how would I feel? (If I can prepare myself for it, it is easier, right?)

Honestly, I think I'd feel fine. It's not like I've never heard the C word before - I'm a pro at it by now! It's not going to change the fact that I need a mastectomy, it'll just make it a little more invasive. It's not going to change my life plan any more than it already has. And most importantly, it is not going to change the fact that I am celebrating my marriage to the love of my life on Saturday, surrounded by family and friends. I will celebrate that under any circumstances. In fact, if I get less than desirable news from this MRI, I will celebrate all the more than I have this wonderful man and this wonderful (and ever increasing!) family to walk with me through the next part of my journey.

Take that, cancer! Let's party!

Michael and I journey together.
(My grandpa's Memorial money paid for much of this labyrinth.)

Sermon: Rest from the law (Aug. 25, 2013)

Pentecost 14C

Luke 13:10-17

         Who does Jesus think he is, anyway? You know, this is just one more reason to believe that he does not come from God – working on the Sabbath! We have laws for a reason, after all – we can’t have people breaking them willy-nilly. Where does it stop? Today we’re breaking the Sabbath, and tomorrow, what? Do we start taking the Lord’s name in vain? Dishonoring our parents? These are God’s laws, we’re talking about here. This is a really big deal.

         I mean, why would God give us a law that was meant to be broken? Laws are meant to guide our way, to show us how God wants us to live, a sort of curb to keep us on the right road. They are meant to protect and preserve us. But you start breaking one law, and then all laws become less like law, and more like suggestions, and they lose their power to protect and preserve. And if they indeed show us how God wants us to live, then how could we even think of hopping the curb and going our own way, rather than God’s way?

         On the other hand…

         Can you imagine viewing the world – for eighteen years – from the waist down? To be so bent over that you can’t see anyone’s face? She tried to make the best of her life. She maintained her faith, kept the law, and always went to the synagogue on the Sabbath, as the law told her to do. She knew that her God was full of mercy and compassion, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. Perhaps if she could just continue to have faith in that, God would, someday, show her that mercy and compassion, that abounding and steadfast love, and free her from this crippling spirit.

As the years went on, it was hard to maintain that hope, but hope was all she had. And so she continued to go to synagogue, and continued to sing praises to God, even as she felt continually trapped by this ailment that kept her quite unable to stand up straight.

         What a surprise it was that day in the synagogue. For her, it was a normal day, a normal Sabbath, the day specifically set aside for holiness and rest. The woman knew her Scriptures – she knew that keeping the Sabbath was linked to two significant stories in her people’s history. It was because of creation, because God rested on the seventh day, and we should too, but it was also because of the exodus. Many years before, her people had been slaves in Egypt, cruelly treated by the Pharaoh, made to work without proper rest, bound in slavery. And God had sent Moses to free them. They followed Moses, out of Egypt and across the Red Sea, leaving their bindings behind. And so God told them, in the book called Deuteronomy, to remember on the Sabbath that while once they were bound as slaves, now they are free.

         The woman secretly clung to that second meaning, the one about freedom. Oh, to be free from this ailment! To be free from whatever this thing was that kept her hunched over, unable to see and appreciate the fullness of the world!

         Imagine how she felt, then, when she encountered Jesus that day, when he said to her, “Woman, you are set free from your ailment.” A part of her was scared – she completely understood the synagogue leader’s indignation. She took the law seriously, too. Had this man Jesus, this man claiming to be from God, just broken the Sabbath? She did want to be healed, don’t get her wrong, but was the Sabbath the right time to do it? But she also knew that this was exactly right: the Sabbath was about freedom, after all! Her people had been bound as slaves in Egypt, and then they were free, and so we should honor the Sabbath to keep it holy. She had been bound as a slave to this crippling spirit, and now she was free – so what a way to honor the Sabbath, to keep it holy! She even heard this in Jesus’ next words, “…ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen long years, be set free from this bondage on the Sabbath day?” Yes, Lord, free from bondage! 

Even as she was unsure about whether this was the right time and place, she also felt that she had that day become a living example of the spirit of the Sabbath – a spirit of freedom from bondage, freedom from slavery. And as she stood up straight and saw the world around her for the first time in eighteen years, all she could do was begin praising God – who indeed is full of mercy and compassion, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.

         Today’s Gospel reading gives us two powerful perspectives on law: the indignant synagogue leader who is wary of breaking one law lest we take it as leeway to break all the rest, and the bent over woman, whose healing can be seen as the embodiment of the spirit of freedom that the Sabbath intends. Whose is right?

         To be fair, there is validity in both perspectives. The synagogue leader is right: these laws are in place for a reason, and we would do well to remember that. They are there to protect and preserve us, to keep us on the right path, and therefore, to lead us toward life. And I think Sabbath is one law in particular that we could take a lot more seriously. For most people, I think when we hear “Sabbath,” we think, “Go to church.” Going to church is one thing you can do on the Sabbath to keep it holy, and I certainly don’t want to discourage that. But Sabbath is so much more than that. In today’s story, Sabbath is about release from bondage, about overcoming that which bends us over and makes us unable to see, about freedom to praise God. Some of us may have been physically bent over at some point or even currently, but my guess is that all of us have been spiritually or emotionally bent over at some point in our lives. We have too much on our plate. We have too many demands on our backs. We have impossible expectations put upon us by friends, family, co-workers, or even ourselves. We are weary, and don’t allow ourselves the rest we need, indeed the rest that God commands.

         Sabbath, then, becomes a life-giving mandate for us, a chance to find release from all these binding and crippling demands of life. Maybe you have the luxury of a whole day of rest – that would be best, but realistically in today’s world this is hard to come by, especially if you have people in your life, like children or elderly parents, who cannot care for themselves. So maybe you need to take Sabbath where you can find it: at a red light, perhaps, when you can just take a deep breath and say a prayer for freedom from the weight of the world. Or in those few moments after you wake but before you are out of bed, when you can pray for peace throughout your day.

Sabbath is something we need, and the synagogue leader is right to stand by that need. Where the synagogue leader’s view falls short, however, is that his upholding of the law is only for the letter of the law, and not for the spirit of the law. This is where we can learn something from the woman’s story as well. Our Psalm today says that God is full of mercy and compassion and abounding in steadfast love, and we would do well to remember that these characteristics of God overarch all laws. In other words, God gives us these laws because God is merciful, compassionate, and loving. And if those laws contradict those values in any way, then the spirit of the law is not being fulfilled.

         What, then, is the spirit of the law? 

With Jesus, grace trumps law. That’s not to say we disregard the law – by no means. Law has its place, to show us the way God wants us to live, to get us outside ourselves and facing God and the needs of our neighbor. But the law always bows to mercy, grace, love, and life. Law helps us know how to live better lives, but grace creates and enables life. Law pushes us to care for each other, but grace catches us when we fall short of that. Sometimes the law is suspended in order to let grace abound, and today’s Gospel is just such a time. In this story, when Jesus breaks the Sabbath law, healing happens, a sinner gives thanks and praise, and a crowd rejoices – because that is what happens when grace invites us to both value the law and also suspend it in the name of mercy, compassion, and love.

         Let us pray. God, you are full of compassion and mercy, and abounding in steadfast love. Help us to value your commandments and live them to the fullest, but help us also to know when we must tend toward grace in order to let your mercy, love and compassion abound in our lives and in the lives of everyone we meet. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

So that's how it's gonna be, Life and Ministry?

Married life is great.

Life since being married has been crazy.

And it started off with a bang, to be sure, and probably in the most appropriate way for a pastor and her new husband.

I have been trying for a week to digest the past week and a half, but I haven't had time! I've scarcely had a moment off since before my vacation time officially ended. So I'm just going to start writing... and see what happens.

We arrived home from our honeymoon in the wee hours of Thursday morning. We enjoyed, well, half a night's sleep in our new home as a married couple, and had a leisurely Thursday morning, got some things done, and enjoyed each other's company. At some point during the day, I learned that the sister (S.) of one of my parishioners had suffered a heart attack. This is a family I know and love and had gotten fairly close to through many conversations about some other stuff going on in their lives. S had visited several times, and had been in with her daughter recently to talk about said daughter's upcoming wedding (in November). By 5pm, S. was being transfered to a different hospital for emergency surgery. Michael's and my dinner plans went by the wayside and I headed for the hospital. After S. was safely in surgery, I left the family with my deacon, because I had to prepare to leave in the morning for my friend's wedding in the Boston area (I was presiding). But around midnight, I got the dreaded text: S. had just passed away. As soon as my phone buzzed and Michael heard my soft, "Ohhh," he said, "Are you heading back to the hospital?" "Yes." So I rolled out of bed, got dressed, and off I went.

After spending a couple of hours with the shocked and grieving family at the hospital, I returned home, about 2am. I crawled back into our bed, trying to be quiet, but Michael was awake.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes. Just sad."

"I've been awake since you left. Been thinking about you and them."

This touched me. I didn't take it as a complaint, and I know it wasn't. It was simply my dear husband, expressing that his heart had been with me and with these members of his church family during a difficult night. I felt supported, and loved. I felt deeply grateful to him and for him. And as I crawled into bed and nuzzled up next to him, and his arm went around me, I felt safe. I told him about what had happened, and how I was feeling. I simply processed the evening with him, and he loved me through it, and then we fell asleep.

On the one hand, we spent our first full night in our house as a married couple apart, with me at the hospital. On the other hand, we spent our first night at home as a married couple truly experiencing what our life together will be. Both of us are dedicated to our professional calling, yet absolutely dedicated to and supportive of each other, and willing to do what it takes to allow both our professional vocations and our vocations as each other's spouses to be an integral part of our marriage.

More craziness has happened since all that - my friend's wedding, the journey to which included a missed turn and a road trip twice as long as it should have been (11 hours instead of 6), two funerals, planning two other weddings (neither of which were our Rochester event), Vacation Bible School, a congregational picnic/joint worship, and oh yeah, trying desperately to get our house into some semblance of order before our next wedding in two weeks (wait, what?). I am, frankly, exhausted, more tired than I think I have ever been, and Michael as well. But we continue to love each other more each day, and make each other smile, and take care of each other even in our fatigue. And we are more grateful for each other each day. And having started out our married lives the way we did, I am only more confident that we are a partnership that can and will work.

Thanks be to God for my Michael.

Sermon: The "Prince of Peace," Was It? (Aug. 18, 2013)

Pentecost 13C

August 18, 2013

Luke 12:49-56

         Well, we’re back! Newly wed, fresh from our honeymoon, moved into the new house, and back in the saddle. It was a full couple of weeks out in California, with several events to plan and attend, and crafts to complete, and of course the delicate walk you make with any wedding, where everyone is meeting and spending time with new people in different settings and navigating this new sort of relationship. But at the end, we came out of it, each of us, with a larger family, more people to love, more people to surround us in our lives. I’d say we did a pretty good job on the whole family dynamic front.

         What a surprise, then, to come back to this strange and disturbing Gospel text! This doesn’t seem like the Jesus we know – the “Prince of Peace,” wasn’t he was called? And here he’s talking about fire, and turning households against each other, and division between family members. A rude awakening, to be sure! What are we to make of this Jesus, who spits out these words, “I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled!”

There is plenty in this passage to be uneasy about, especially upon an initial reading. First, there is all this talk of fire. Fire is not something most of us welcome. Especially out west, where I’m from, fire is an ever-present danger in the summer. Like many of you, I grew up listening to Smoky the Bear tell me that, “Only YOU can prevent forest fires.” We learned that fire is dangerous. It’s destructive. People who fight fires are some of the most respected heroes in society.         

Then there is all the elaboration on division – father against son, son against father, and so on. Family dynamics can be very difficult, whether in the intensity of a wedding situation or just any old day. So why is Jesus advocating for conflict and division between family members? Who can read that without squirming in their seat?

It’s safe to say that most people try to avoid conflict if they can, whether in our personal relationships or in the church. I have a friend who interviewed for a pastoral internship, one of the requirements for seminary. His would-be supervisor told him that this congregation was divided about some big issues, and he said, “If you feel called to conflict management, this is a great internship site for you.” Yikes! While I know there are some who do feel called to the ministry of conflict resolution and healing, that would have sent me running, and it did my friend, too!

But these words from Jesus make us think differently about conflict, and about fire (whether metaphorical or physical). If Jesus says he came to kindle fire among us, and to cause division, then that must be a part of God’s plan for the world – but how?

When we were on our honeymoon, we went to Muir Woods, just outside of San Francisco. This is a large, preserved area of California coastal redwoods: these mammoth trees, the largest living things on earth, and some of the oldest – some of them have been around since Jesus walked the earth!  Part of what allows them to live so long is not only that they have thick bark that protects them from fire, but also that fire is actually essential for their reproduction. First, the fire clears out some the shade-loving and less durable species around the redwood, plants which would otherwise crowd out the little sequoia seedlings and prevent them from thriving. Second, fire dries out the cones, which allows the seeds to escape and germinate – that is, fire is necessary for new life to thrive. Fire is so essential to the survival of these giant trees, in fact, that our diligent attempts at fire prevention has actually threatened the trees’ survival, and now the National Park Service has had to begin controlled burns, starting fires, forcing it to rip through the forest and cause the necessary damage, so that the necessary growth can follow.

With that in mind, the fire that Jesus talks about starts to look a little dangerous. In a forest of redwoods, fire cleanses, and it brings new life. This is what we expect from a relationship with Jesus, is it not? Jesus’ fire, his “baptism,” as he calls it, destroys that stuff in our lives that keeps us from having a close relationship with Christ. It clears out the rubbish and helps us focus on God. And, of course, it brings us new life – life and transformation in this life, as well as the promise of everlasting life.

Yet, even with that good news, the fire that Jesus is trying to kindle is really no less scary, no less disruptive, no less dangerous. As he says, this fire will cause division. This gets into the conflict piece, that conflict that we humans so desperately try to avoid. We avoid it by telling white lies (or even lies that aren’t really so white), or by flat out ignoring it (and hence letting it fester), or by internalizing it and trying to make it our own fault (and hence possible for us to change it without having to talk to anyone else). Sometimes we even avoid one conflict that we don’t want to deal with by starting another one that we do know how to deal with – I can’t fix the issue at my workplace, but I can yell at my kids for not cleaning their room. Oh, we humans are very clever about avoiding conflict, are we not?

And yet, Jesus tells us that he has come to bring about that conflict, that division. When she was serving as the assistant to the bishop, Jessica Crist, now Bishop of Montana Synod, reflected on her work in the synod office. A large part of that position is what she calls “putting out fires” in the church, something she fancied herself to be pretty good at. But then upon reading this text, she realized: Jesus is the one setting some of those fires in the church! She writes, “Talk about a disconnect! I guess that I am probably as guilty as the next person of making God in my own image, of designing a Jesus whom I can fully comprehend. A Jesus who puts out fires sounds pretty sweet to me, pretty compatible, pretty comfortable, pretty useful. But that’s not the Jesus of the Gospel.”

So who is the Jesus of the Gospel? Again, at first reading, this stressed out, judgmental, fire wielding Jesus that suddenly appears in Luke chapter 12 may seem to come out of nowhere. But if we look elsewhere in Luke, we will see that he has been there all along.

Back in chapter 4, in his very first sermon, Jesus says, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, 
because he has anointed me 
to bring good news to the poor.
 He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives 
and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, 
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Sounds fine, until you realize: release of the captives is likely to upset some folks! Are they not in captivity for a reason? Letting the oppressed go free is great for the oppressed, but what about those who have benefited from their oppression – like those of us who buy clothes made in sweatshops because they are cheap? Jesus’ mission brings about change and conflict in our safe, comfortable, often self-serving lives. With Jesus’ fire on the loose, we cannot maintain a status quo in which people remain hungry, or live in the midst of constant war, or endure daily bullying. But in order for those things to change, people are going to get upset. There will be conflict. There will be division. There has to be. But after that conflict and division – that is the time that true peace can be realized.

Surely you’ve even seen this in your own lives. How many of you, when you have finally faced a conflict, have been able to find peace? After weeks of pent up frustration at your spouse, you finally blow up and get it all out there, and finally, for the first time in weeks, you feel peace again? Or an issue has been building at work, and the environment has become hostile, and when the conflict is addressed and managed, people learn and grow, and peace is achieved?

Conflict is necessary to find peace. Discomfort and division are often a step in the journey toward better life. A forest fire clears away the roughage and offers new seedlings a chance to survive, giving new life to the trees. Conflict, division, and fire: these things are necessary for change, for transformation, for development – and if there is one thing that Scripture and experience teach us, it is that God loves us too much to let us stay the same.

Let us pray: God of peace, God of division, God of transformation and God of love: We avoid conflicts and fires in our lives because they can be very painful. Grant us the courage to face them, and through them bring to the world and to each of us the hope of transformation and new life. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

On becoming a wife

Yesterday Michael and I traveled home from our honeymoon ("mini-moon") and were suddenly struck with just how much had happened in the last week - most notably, we got married! I have reflected before on all the new identities I am having to come to terms with - regarding my health, my financial lifestyle, my decision-making process, all these things that are changing (practically daily). This week was the biggest of all: I became a wife.

It was really a wonderful day, full of smiles and celebration. Michael and I had decided that for us, it was really more about the ceremony than the reception, though we were also very much looking forward to seeing and talking with people who had come, some from great distances, to be with us on Saturday. We agreed that for us, our wedding day was the perfect balance of ceremony to reception.

I started getting ready about 12:30. I had several friends from college who had come from Minnesota (and one from Texas), and since these days I really only get to see them at weddings, and we are running out of unmarried friends, I invited them to come hang out with the wedding party during the getting-ready time. A member of Peace Lutheran Church had transformed the downstairs area where we got ready (the youth room) into a comfortable space with lamps, flowers, mirrors - it was lovely! We had our friend (my mom's hair dresser) come to the church to do people's hair, which she did while people milled around chatting and eating. Despite having allowed what I thought was plenty of time, suddenly the photographer was there and eager to take some detail shots and some bride shots. Whoa! So my friend Sara did my make-up for me (I had asked her to make a vintage face for me, which she did beautifully!), and I slipped into my dress, and voila! Bride!

For those who care about such things: my something old was my engagement ring, which is an estate piece. My something new was my dress, and also the beautiful crystal earrings I ended up wearing, a gift from my sister-in-law's parents in China. Something blue was also my ring, because it has sapphires in in. Something borrowed was proving to be the most difficult part! Because my dress didn't lend itself well to a necklace, I was running out of options. At the 11th hour, I emailed my friends who were traveling and asked if they had anything. My friend Amy's grandfather was a jeweler, and she had a simple string of pearls, so that is what I ended up wearing. Here's me, putting on the earrings - the final touch:

As I went with the photographer for some bride shots, we almost ran into Michael!! He was working on setting up the sound equipment. I saw him and immediately ducked behind the wall. He saw enough of me to realize it was me and I was in a white dress and quickly averted his eyes. Phew! Close call. (Besides that, we didn't see each other at all before the moment I walked down the aisle.)

Soon enough, it was time for the ceremony. Everything went smoothly, just as we had practiced it. Joe Robinson (my NY Phil oboe friend from my Make-a-Wish experience) and his wife Mary Kay played a haunting antiphonal piece as a sort of "call to wedding worship" - two instruments, back and forth, having a conversation with each other, and finishing finally together. Perfect for a wedding! Then they played Gabriel's Oboe from the the movie The Mission. This was Joe's suggestion, and it was perfect, just perfect! The bridesmaids (plus my brother, who walked in with his wife - he was my "bridesman" - and Michael's one "groomsgirl") came in during the first time through the theme, and then the second time through, when we added a violin descant into the mix, my parents walked me in. I was on cloud nine, seeing my beloved standing up there looking about as handsome as I have ever seen him, in his classic blue blazer, khakis, white shirt, and yellow bow tie. And seeing all my dear friends and family, including my friend Tim as our pastor, standing up at the front, and all those other wonderful people in the congregation... it was almost too much to behold, especially when you add the glorious music!

The ceremony was perfect. We sang good hymns (Love Divine All Loves Excelling, and Now Thank We All Our God), we heard good readings, Tim preached a lovely sermon about God's love trumping all and our marriage being a part of the promise of God's kingdom. We had communion, and my dad and uncle were the assisting ministers.

A couple of noteworthy things about the ceremony. First, the vows. Here they are:

I take you, N, to be my husband/wife,

from this day onward,

to join with you and share all that is to come,

to honor and to respect,

to speak and to listen,

to become with you a family,

to inspire, and to be inspired,

to stay by your side for better or for worse,

in sickness and in health,

and to be loyal and true, my whole life long.

This is my solomn vow.

Everyone says on your wedding day, you are on a plain above and that keeps you from crying. Not so. At the rehearsal the day before, Michael had full on broken down in tears when I came down the aisle, and so of course I followed suit. This time we both held it together during the procession, but lost it during the vows. Michael did all right - but as I suspected, when we got to the "in sickness and in health" bit, and I could not even say the words. Tim said them, and I opened my mouth but all that came out was tears. I whispered, "What he said..." and Michael whispered, "That doesn't count! You have to say it!" It wasn't that I didn't want to say it, or that I was scared to say it. Or was it? That certainly isn't what I was thinking at the time, but in retrospect, maybe I was scared to say it. Here we were, finally celebrating our wedding instead or going to the doctor, or recovering from surgery, or anticipating the pros and cons of different treatments and their unwanted side effects, and I just wanted to be there, in that happy wedding place. When we wrote our vows, I was so insistent that "in sickness and health" be a part of them, because we knew the importance of that all too well. But now as we said them, two thoughts went through my head: 1) I'm done with sickness. I'm tired of being sick, and don't want to consider the inevitability of more sickness in our lives together, and 2) I'm so scared about someday when Michael and I are in swapped positions, when he is the sick one, and I have to stand helplessly by, unable to ease his physical or emotional pain. I don't want to go through what I have gone through again, but even more, I don't want to go through what he has gone through. Yes, of course I will if and when the time comes for that. Knowing a little bit about it already, however, I found this part of our vows extremely hard to get out. But I did say it. And I do mean it, every last word.

(To echo this, in Luke's toast later, he spoke to Michael, saying, "She needs someone to be strong for her. She is strong for everyone else, so she needs someone to be strong for her." Michael has certainly done this. And I will do it for him when the need arises! This is something we are very good at. Lots of practice.)

The other noteworthy part of the service was communion. Interestingly enough, I didn't want to have communion. Communion is a sacrament of the church, and I knew there would be several non-church people there, and I didn't want them to be excluded in any way from this celebration. Michael, on the other hand, really wanted communion. He understood our wedding to be a very holy event, and felt that having communion as a part of it would make it all that much more holy, not to mention bring us and those with whom we were celebrating in closer communion with God. For whatever reason, I was not hearing this... until about Wednesday of wedding week, when I finally thought, "This is stupid - we should be having communion!" So I put my retired pastor dad on the task of changing the bulletin and adding communion, which he of course skillfully did. And it was absolutely lovely. Of our friends who are not "churchy," or for whatever reason didn't feel comfortable taking communion, many came forward for blessings. And we sat there in the front row watching this communion of saints in action. I don't very often get to just watch communion happen anymore, and so all the more I found this experience to be very overwhelming. There was so much prayer and blessing in this ceremony, in so many different forms - spoken, sung, given and received - that it would be impossible not to feel God's loving presence in our lives and marriage. And so when Tim blessed us and everyone at the end, and Michael kissed me, my heart was bursting with joy. The organ wailed its exuberant recessional (Peeter Flors' Toccata, a Peace Lutheran favorite), we skipped out (figuratively and literally), and we had a chance to greet each person coming out of the sanctuary with hugs and smiles. Every person I saw, my heart burst a little more. What joy!

After the receiving line, we took some pictures, we joined the reception, and did our first dance.

We took some more pictures. Some folks did some toasts, which were lovely and heartfelt. We did father-daughter dance (to Billy Joel's Goodnight, My Angel, a longtime favorite of mine that dad happened to choose!), and mother-son dance. We had pies for dessert and chocolate chip cookies (Michael's favorite) and spicy cutouts (my favorite) in the shape of hearts and airplanes, so instead of cutting the cake, Michael and I gave our favorite cookies to each other.

Here's the head table. The yellow cards talk about the symbolism of sunflowers, and say that in lieu of wedding favors, we have given a donation in honor of our guests to The Breast Cancer Research Foundation, an organization that received an A+ rating from CharityWatch. They give 91% of donations directly to research - impressive!

My childhood friends grilled Michael in order to give him the stamp of approval, and then giddily came over to me and said, "He's so great for you! I talked to him for 5 minutes and I can already tell that you guys match." There was some dancing, but mostly people sat around and talked, which was great, too. We had open seating, so people sat with whomever they wanted and moved around as they wanted. We had no DJ, so we had a playlist going, but then people came up and chose songs they liked from our vast library. Several friends stayed after and helped clean up tables and whatnot. We helped for a while, but then stole away to our wedding night suite.

And this, among other reasons, is why I love this man: after a long day with many emotions, we crawled into bed and I said, "Now we sleep!" and Michael said, "Yes, but first, we pray." And we lay there facing each other, holding hands, and praying: for the future of our marriage, for each of the wonderful people in our lives, in thanksgiving for all the events, good and bad, that have brought us together and to this point, for our friends and family and dog, for our future family, for God's abiding presence through all that we have endured together and apart. And after a resounding, "Amen!" we finally slipped into sleep.

A perfect day. Thanks be to God.

Wedding pictures!

I'll write more of a reflection on the wedding in a moment, but for now, here are some pictures and videos to tide you over. The photographer said he'd have some pics for us in a couple weeks. I have none on my own camera or phone. Michael has a few, but since we only just arrived home from our honeymoon less than 12 hours ago, I've not even really had a chance to look at them. But in short: the wedding was beautiful and exactly what it should have been. And now I'm a wife! A totally new identity to learn!

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Rehearsal day!

Obviously, I've been a little busy this week - it's wedding week! We've been running around like crazy people. Tuesday we had a baby shower for my brother and sister-in-law, which was wonderful. And then all those lost minute things before weddings. Yesterday we set up everything and had rehearsal and a wonderful dinner, and had so much fun. A dear friend took some photos and video, and put it together. Hopefully you can see it here, because this will capture the day for you. If not, you'll just have to wait until later, because I gotta go - I'm getting hitched this afternoon!

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