Piloting Faith: A Buddhist and Christian perform a wedding...
A Word for the Day...
Over Labor Day I had the privilege of officiating the wedding of one of our dearest friends. Her wife is a Buddhist, so the beginning of the service was shaped by a Buddhist wedding ritual called San San Kudo. The woman leading this part of the service poured Sake into three sipping cups. The couple each took three sips. With the final cup, their parents also took sips from the shared cup.
We then went on with a Christian marriage ceremony where they exchanged rings and offered promises to one another to love, honor and keep one another for as long as they both shall live.
All of our great faith ceremonies have symbols that represent commitments, experiences, and intentions beyond the value of the objects themselves. Rings are just bands of metal...but they represent for us so much more.
Mark Nepo in, The Book of Awakening, writes:
"People have always saved scraps of their experience to help remind them of the forces of life that can't always be seen. Filled with the timeless rhythm of the ocean, we pocket a shell and carry it thousands of miles to know that presence of the ocean when we are hours from the sea. Its why we treasure certain songs, why we save ticket stubs and dried out flowers. Symbols are living mirrors of the deepest understands that have no words."
The symbols we choose for ourselves say a lot about what we cherish and want to hold on to. When you look at the symbols that are "living mirrors" to your life, what do you learn from what you see?
- Rev. Cameron Trimble, author of Piloting Church: Helping Your Congregation Take Flight
Prayer for the Week
Christ with me,
Christ before me,
Christ behind me,
Christ in me,
Christ beneath me,
Christ above me,
Christ on my right,
Christ on my left,
Christ when I lie down,
Christ when I sit down,
Christ when I arise,
Christ in the heart of every one who thinks of me,
Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me,
Christ in every eye that sees me,
Christ in every ear that hears me.
- Excerpt from St Patrick's Breastplate