Convocation

[Composed by Saul and Liz; delivered by Abhay Mohan Kulkarni]

This is Love’s House. No hand built this; it is the builder. No wall shapes this; it is the door. No path leads here; it is the range.

Each thing is built by love, in love, and to love. What distinguishes is which each loves, and how. People live and love by knowing and by trusting enough to be known; it is in knowing and trusting others, and in being known and trusted by others, that I best know and trust myself.

But the privacy of experience and the risk of mistaken inference put limits on love. We can either gain or lose by sharing, so we share some and we guard some in different proportions in each of our relationships.

Marriage recognizes, formalizes, celebrates and perpetuates a unique relationship: the ongoing intertwining of two people into a couple, such that the two express their fullest selves as complements; the transportation of any given moment’s passion across a story of daily adventure and respite; the creation of a space which is both most intensely shared and most intensely private.

Still if each of us is a unique combination of potential and realization, a couple is doubly so. No two people need the same things from each other, want the same things, find the same things, learn the same things — as a different two do from each other.

So for all the commonalities of species, of gender, of culture, there are limits to the advice anyone can give anyone else about such relationships. It can be hard for any two to know they’re doing it right, for them; it can be hard sometimes to know that’s even what they’re trying to do. And no one else has been or can be precisely there to tell them yes or no. The clearest answer may be provided by looking back over the story so far, and then it may seem so obvious as to be difficult to find noteworthy.

And yet, marriage looks forward. Marriage rests on an intuition (no matter how well-informed) of continuity in the face of disruption, dynamic stability in the face of change. Thus two have come who, though distinct, through love have built a third: a couple. They have made this house their dwelling, and in the building of their union their hands and hearts now build a human house, with walls in which to set their doors.

So this is Love’s House, which has no location but is locatedness. And it is also their house, which is wherever they are, through which they are together even when apart.

They began apart but not alone; unknown to each other, but built by other’s love and trust, even as these two loved and trusted others. Neither alone laid either road that led them together, but instead were helped at every turn by their families and their friends, in generosity or foresight. Even now, together, these two do not build alone. We, their larger circles, also now brought together, raise the posts on which to set the roof, stock the cupboards and adorn the walls, keep the beat and paint the memory.

Neither is any of us here but by the love and trust of others, ranked in lines stretching out behind us. Though not with us here or today, this placeless place is also timeless time. If you looked back, you might see them, gathered like us to witness, the better to know, to love and trust.

Saul, Liz, have you words and signs by which to dedicate your house, and you both to it?

[In turn, Liz and Saul take rings from Nathan and Michelle, place them on each other’s fingers, and say: “With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.” Liz’s parents open the wine, pour some into the silver cup, hand it to Liz, who gives Saul a drink; she hands the cup to Saul, who gives her a drink. Saul’s parents break off a piece of bread and hand it to Saul, who breaks a further piece and feeds it to Liz; he hands the larger piece to her so that she can break off a further piece and feed it to him. Then you continue with questions, which Liz and Saul answer in unison.]

Liz, Saul, will you dwell in this house of yours while you both live?

We will.

And as you have dwelt here in Love’s House, will you make your house a dwelling for Love always?

We will.

Will you always keep the walls of your house sound, so that at its heart you each know yourselves to be open and safe?

We will.

And will you keep the doors of your house open, even as you keep the walls sound, so that the love and trust you gain from giving better enable you both to go out generously into the world, or to shelter those in need?

We will.

Then I declare, in the sight of all this company, by the trust placed in me by my ancestors and recognized by the State of Colorado, that you are married. Worthies, I present Mr. and Mrs. Epstein!