Going through the files on my laptop I cam across a toast I wrote for a family gathering. I can’t remember what gathering or whether I gave the toast or not. But it’s still true, and heartfelt.
“In the beginning, before the earth and the stars, before time itself,
There is a family — A lover who pours out his (or her) self as a gift just for the one he loves,
A beloved, who receives that gift and responds perfectly in kind,
And the love exchanged between them, from which everything is made.
This giving and receiving and giving again,
This pouring out and replenishing,
This intimate, mutual self-gift,
Takes on a life of its very own
And creates the world we know.
Kind of like how two wonderful people can become something astonishing
Once they place the word “and” between their names —
Dede and David, Don and Blanche, Heidi and Cody –
And they give their lives to that tiny, miraculous, terrifying word “and”
Two become one, while still being two. Living the “and.”
That “and” becomes an “us,” which changes
sportscars into minivans,
nightclubs into night feedings,
“tables for two” into “Tables for four, two kids menus, and a booster seat.”
I started my life as a beloved, completely unable to comprehend what I was receiving.
I simply cried and a big person who loved me was suddenly there.
I had no idea that they were sleeping, that they had an early work meeting,
that they grumbled all the way down the hall to my crib.
All I knew is that they were there.
And they were there. And they were there again. Over and over. That’s how we learn.
What fuels my hope for the world are all the marvelous ways we family are there for each other. And the beautiful things, the Neals, the Brads, the Hannahs, and for that matter the Addies and the Sarahs, that come to us from that original mutual gift of self,
And all the bright young people are poised on the brink of their stint in the world as lovers and givers of self, living the “and” that they learned from us. (God help us.)
And this long-winded toast is just to say that, with this family, I am in the presence of God himself.
You may not be pious or devout, but Jesus never cared much for that. But how you love, that was
everything to him. And, as far as I can see from this family, love is everything to you.
The tenderness of a father for his son, the way two fine sons honor and respect their mother, the flame
of passion that burns brighter between Husband and Wife because of the years between them, not in
spite of them. We might as well be in church.
This weekend Heidi and I feel like the beloved, receiving your gift of generosity and invitation. And we
respond with witness, gratitude, and heartfelt admiration.
My eyes are bright with praise of God for being amongst all of you. To me families like yours are the very Sacrament of his presence in the world. The very hope I have for the future.”
wellthereyougo 