wedding reading

[DorothyClair]

I am looking for a reading for my sisters wedding - not poetry but prose - say a passage from a piece of literature which describes a person's love for another.

can anyone help.

[Litchick]

There is a book called "The Prophet" by Gibrahn (spelling?)

We used a passage at our wedding and it's beautiful.

"When you love, you should not say "God is in my heart," but rather I am in the heart of God."  And think not that you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course. Love has no other desire but to fulfill itself.  But if you love and have desires let these be your desires:  To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night, to know the pain of too much tenderness.  To be wounded by your own understanding of love; and to bleed willingly and joyfully.  To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving; to rest at the noon hour and mediate love's ecstacy; to return home at eventide with gratitude; and to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips."

GORGEOUS, eh?

[RevShirls]

One of my favourites is a passage from the children's book "The Velveteen Rabbit" by Margery Williams.

From THE VELVETEEN RABBIT (by Margery Williams)

�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 (person) 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 along time. That�s why it doesn�t often happen 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, & your eyes drop out & you get loose in the joints & 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.�

[RevShirls]

There is also a specific passage about marriage in "The Prophet" by Kahlil Gibran:

MARRIAGE
You were born together, & together you shall be for evermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death
 scatter your days.
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness.
& 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 & dance together & be joyous, but let each 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,
& the oak tree & the cypress grow not in each other�s shadow.

[woofgang]

Rev Shirls Thank you for posting that lovely passage, I am sitting here having a sniffle over it, It is so true

[LeMarchand]

woofgang: get the book, it's great.

[RevShirls]

It had the same effect on me when I read it many years ago, Woofgang. I often use this passage from the Velveteen Rabbit and the Marriage passage from Kahlil Gibran at weddings and I present the books to the couples along with a Bible.