The Ties That Bind
Twenty years ago tonight we were getting ready for the big day. Our families had gathered from all over - Texas, Maryland, Indiana, Wisconsin, and other points out there beyond where the sidewalk ends. We were going to go out to dinner in the North End - a restaurant named Mamma Spumoni’s or some such. It was all a blur to me then; twenty years later it's even fuzzier.
But first, we had to go to the church for the rehearsal. Our church was a grey brooding gothic revival structure located behind the State House on Beacon Hill in Boston. Inside the church was even gloomier, with grey walls and a lot of dark wood. The colors of the reredos on the back wall and the statues were muted under almost 150 years of incense smoke. A large rood cross hung from the ceiling, with statues of Mary and St. John flanking it. The spotlight that illuminated it cast a dark shadow over the altar.
We walked through how it would go. Our wedding liturgy would flow into the Sunday Mass. The reason was that the Bishop had forbidden our clergy from blessing gay unions within the canon of the Mass, so in this time before gay marriage was legal or accepted in the Episcopal Church, we split hairs and performed such ceremonies just before the formal beginning of the Mass. The Unindicted One and I didn't believe in second-class Christians, so we used the exact same liturgy as the same-sex couples, just switching pronouns where appropriate.
Maybe it was the great dark cavelike solemnity of my church, but when it got to the point where vows were given, I was overwhelmed. Never mind all the liturgical pompous circumstances, this was real. I didn't have a single doubt, but the realization of the lifetime vows I was about to take just crashed in on me. This was the most important thing I would ever do. I was pledging my life and my very soul to this woman. And she to me.
Fortunately, the priest had a box of tissues handy.
The funny thing was, I'd been married in that same church a little over 12 years earlier. I never had that feeling then. Maybe I was too young. (Of course I was too young.) Maybe it was because I had painful experience that marriages can fall apart.
Our union, our nation of two, our conspiracy, has thrived. Twenty years later, and we're still thick as thieves.
I am, of all men, the most fortunate and richly blessed.
But first, we had to go to the church for the rehearsal. Our church was a grey brooding gothic revival structure located behind the State House on Beacon Hill in Boston. Inside the church was even gloomier, with grey walls and a lot of dark wood. The colors of the reredos on the back wall and the statues were muted under almost 150 years of incense smoke. A large rood cross hung from the ceiling, with statues of Mary and St. John flanking it. The spotlight that illuminated it cast a dark shadow over the altar.
We walked through how it would go. Our wedding liturgy would flow into the Sunday Mass. The reason was that the Bishop had forbidden our clergy from blessing gay unions within the canon of the Mass, so in this time before gay marriage was legal or accepted in the Episcopal Church, we split hairs and performed such ceremonies just before the formal beginning of the Mass. The Unindicted One and I didn't believe in second-class Christians, so we used the exact same liturgy as the same-sex couples, just switching pronouns where appropriate.
Maybe it was the great dark cavelike solemnity of my church, but when it got to the point where vows were given, I was overwhelmed. Never mind all the liturgical pompous circumstances, this was real. I didn't have a single doubt, but the realization of the lifetime vows I was about to take just crashed in on me. This was the most important thing I would ever do. I was pledging my life and my very soul to this woman. And she to me.
Fortunately, the priest had a box of tissues handy.
The funny thing was, I'd been married in that same church a little over 12 years earlier. I never had that feeling then. Maybe I was too young. (Of course I was too young.) Maybe it was because I had painful experience that marriages can fall apart.
Our union, our nation of two, our conspiracy, has thrived. Twenty years later, and we're still thick as thieves.
I am, of all men, the most fortunate and richly blessed.