The Mystery of Love

> In a couple of hours, I will have the privilege of preaching a wedding homily for one of my dearest friends from seminary. We will have all of the glorious pomp and circumstance attendant to such an event in the Episcopal Church -- classical music, appropriate hymns, the solemnity of the Eucharist. We will see a beautiful bride and a handsome groom. We will pray for them, celebrate with them and wish them well in the ardent and arduous undertaking that is marriage.
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> Church weddings bring us face to face with our innermost longings to love and be loved. But love does not come to us without exacting something from us. We give something of ourselves away because of love, while simultaneously becoming something more than we could be without love. The mutuality of giving and receiving -- not as a transaction but as a sign of transformation -- is part and parcel of ANY loving relationship, whether between wife and husband, parent and child or two best friends, just to name a few. In short, we are each changed, for better or worse, as a result of the qualities of our relationships, and our part in them over time.
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> The mystery of love isn't a puzzle to be assembled or a problem to be solved. The mystery of love isn't the romantic fantasy of happily-ever-after. We catch glimpses of this mystery in the moments we least expect it -- a certain tone of voice, the tilt of a face, the sparkle of an eye or the hint of a smile. Sometimes the mystery looks pretty mundane -- taking out the trash, doing the dishes or walking the dog. Other times the mystery takes on a heroic quality -- long hours in a hospital room or the day-in-day-out toil of caregiving for someone no longer capable of caring for themselves. In the end though, maybe the best way to experience the mystery is to take the plunge and the risk of loving and being loved.
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> Call me naive, but I really do believe the plunge is worth the risk.
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> Sent from my iPad