Rev. Richard Gilbert

February 13, 2000

First Unitarian Church of Rochester

"I've grown accustomed to your face. You always make the day begin." Two snippets from one of my favorite musicals, My Fair Lady. I'll spare you the rest, but you get the idea. Henry Higgens, speech coach, is falling in love with Eliza Doolittle, lovely cockney girl with an atrocious accent whose speech he is trying to change. In the process, of course, she grows on him and it is love - not at first glance - but love by constant contact.

Now, I'm not very romantic. Even on Valentine's Day. I'm a little like the man whose wife repeatedly complained that he never told her that he loved her. Finally, he stood up, turned to his wife and said, "My dear, when I married you twenty years ago I told you that I loved you; if it changes, I will let you know."[1]

Yet I am fascinated by relationships - relationships of all kinds. After all, I've performed nearly 400 weddings, several ceremonies of commitment for those not wishing legal marriages, and gay and lesbian rituals of holy union.

But I'm thinking here of other kinds of intimacy as well - the various family units now among us - nuclear families, childless couples, gay and lesbian partners with or without children, single-parent households, extended families, single persons living alone, friendships - all the many ways in which human beings configure themselves.

What intrigues me is not so much the relationship between two or more people as a slice in time, a photograph, but the relationship as a process over time - a video. In considering the many modes of human intimacy, I think of one of the most interesting parts of one wedding ceremony I lead, the so-called "interrogation," a perhaps unfortunate word in which I ask about intent.

"Knowing what you know of each other and trusting in what you do not yet know, are you now ready to be married?" or we might add, are you now ready to be a parent or a lover or a friend? What a question to ask! Who could, in their right mind, answer in the affirmative? One might almost agree with one anonymous observer who said "People who are sensible about love are incapable of it."[2]

I presume couples coming to me have a working knowledge of one another. These days most of them have been living together. They are invited to share their autobiography with me - with the other present; I give them a relationship inventory to complete and discuss; I require them to prepare their own wedding ceremony. Not only does it afford them opportunity to help create a ceremony that is their own, but it also gives them opportunity to discuss the meaning of their relationship.

But "trusting in what you do not yet know." How can we possibly know that? There is, of course, some hint of that in knowing what we do know of the other. To get personal. Joyce and I, now in our 39th year of marriage, had a great deal in common. Both upstate New York rural Universalists, we shared many fundamental values. We knew we were people of diverse interests and high energy who cared about the world with intensity. Thus, it no surprise that we have become hyperactive 60-somethings.

Not that we have failed to surprise each other in many ways - surprises both pleasant and unpleasant. I won't delve into details. You don't want to know. We have learned that we disagree at times - sometimes about important issues. Without getting too personal, I only cite an instance of this when our younger son and his wife were with us when we came to disagree about something - I have forgotten what. We exchanged views with a certain vigor, but remained reasonably civilized. Our son turned to his wife knowingly and said, "They're fighting now."

You may have seen "For Better or Worse" by Lynn Johnston in yesterday's paper. El has just come back from the doctor and her husband John says: Well, what did your doctor say?" "So far, so good. I still have a couple of procedures to go through." John says reassuringly: "Yes, we're getting to be like a couple of old cars, El. A little rust here, some worn bolts there, a little rattling under the hood. But as long as you take care of 'er . . . she should run for a long time!" El: "I don't know that I like being compared to an old car, John!" John,giving her a hug: "Just think of yourself as a 'classic.'"[3]

I think of Madelein l'Engle's description of her 45-year marriage with TV actor and cancer victim Hugh Franklin. "Our love has been anything but perfect and anything but static. Inevitably there have been times when one of us has outrun the other and has had to wait patiently for the other to catch up. There have been times when we have misunderstood each other, depended too much on each other, been insensitive to the other's needs. I do not believe there is any marriage where this does not happen. The growth of love is not a straight line, but a series of hills and valleys. I suspect that in every good marriage there are times when love seems to be over. Sometimes these desert lines are simply the only way to the next oasis, which is far more lush and beautiful after the desert crossing than it could possibly have been without it."[4]

I think also of a recent article from a popular weekly which carried an article by media personalities Steve and Cokie Roberts. They quoted the sobering words of a priest at a wedding as he spoke of marriage as "an unlimited commitment to an unknowable partner."[5] That is a dose of realism that will cause any person to think at least twice about any relationship in which they find themselves.

How can we ever know what we will become, or our loved one, or our relationship? If we did, life would not be very exciting. If we take the mystery out of the relationship, we take out its humanity as well. We enter into human relations with a promise to try to make them work. We even at times use the word covenant - mutual promise making.

I say, "You are here because you share a history of love and a future of growth. Your being here is a culmination, and a beginning - the beginning of a center of intimacy which will nourish your lives henceforth. Here today you form a covenant, for humans are promise-making and promise-keeping creatures, beings who need the on-goingness of relationships, who need a past, a present, a future.

"We wish you well, for it is no easy pilgrimage on which you embark. Many fall by the side of the road, injured in spirit, exhausted in faith, their love alive no more. Many choose different paths in some unknown future. The way is filled with promise and possibility, with problem and peril.

"Still, you enter the journey with joy, you begin with hope in your hearts, and that is as it should be. May your journey be made in gentleness, may your pilgrimage abound with promise, may the roads you choose to walk together be the paths of plenitude and peace. May you exchange strength of spirit with those who walk with you."

Now, some people don't like that particular homily - because it is too negative - I would say realistic. After all, as writer Robert Fulghum says, "the great banana peel of human existence is always on the floor somewhere."[6]

And human beings, while they are promise-making and promise-keeping creatures, can be promise-breaking creatures, too. We are a bit like porcupines huddling together against the bitter cold of winter, trying to be close, yet pricking each other in the process. Sometimes it seems the closer we try to get, the more we hurt one another.

It is not enough to have a feeling of love for another. Feelings are not an adequate foundation for any lasting relationship. If I feel I love you today, I may feel differently tomorrow. Lasting love does not change with our changing moods. How many of us have not been wounded by the broken promise of a loved one? The betrayal of a friend? The sundering of a relationship? The parting of a comrade?

"Parting is the price of meeting," said some wise soul. To avoid the pain of parting is to avoid love. Love in whatever form, is always accompanied by risk, for we can never know what will be. We must always trust in what we do not yet know and make the best of whatever happens. I don't know who said it or on what basis, but it is estimated that it takes 10 or 20 appreciative and affectionate strokes to make up for damage done when casting a stone at another. Food for thought in any human relationship.

"I've grown accustomed to your face." George Eliot in Adam Bede states the essence of an ongoing human relationship. "What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life, to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories at the moment of last parting."[7]

One of the most powerful poetic expressions of human love I have found is "The Acid Test: Advice to My Son," by Joseph Meredith. It is a haunting poem about the relationship of a husband and wife, yet its values are transferable and translatable to the other kinds of love we experience.

If she touches you when she talks,

laying her hand lightly on your forearm,

do not assume she is the one.

For some women, this touching is learned.

It is no more than tactile punctuation -

delightful in itself, so feel free to enjoy it -

But not the sign you crave.

For others it is much worse.

They think of it as interpersonal contact,

designed to add positive reinforcement.

Be wary. It means she wants something

you would not otherwise give.

Appraise the curve of her fingers on your arm;

some raptors wear exquisite plumage.

But if she leans into you when she laughs,

her shoulder touching your shoulder, this is natural -

a birch leaning toward the sun - the free expression of her heart.

Slip your arm around her waist.

If you hear in her voice,

dark and warm as mulled wine,

viole da gamba play, and the region

from your belt to your knees begins to deliquesce,

there may be strings attached.

Or if she says only things that please you,

you must conclude that she is greasing the skids.

She is not the one you seek.

Remember, in talk as in music, some friction

is both necessary and desirable.

Strings do not sound so sweet without the scraping bow.

And cloves are ground to powder to mull the wine (I leave to you

the role of the hot poker.).

In restaurants, you may think you see

sparks of longing in her eyes.

I caution you, move the candle before the wine arrives.

Between, the flame obscures,

But to the right or left, it gives easy access

to the kind of look that tells -

and darkens the dramatic dent at the neckline of her dress.

And when you gaze deep into her eyes,

do not seek to see the movement of her soul.

It cannot be done.

When you look into a lake

you see no fish beneath the surface.

What you mostly see is your own face,

distorted, gazing back.

So with her eyes - and there diminished, too.

Treasure more the oddities you find:

the tiny flecks of gold and opalescent green

that make the sad gray iris dance.

In other words, should she "speak volumes"

with her eyes, do not think she is the one

before you find who owns the copyright

or check the date of publication.

The sure signs you seek are phantoms -

embers in the ash that seem to move.

You might, though, try this:

Imagine a dim room

down the long hallway of the future

(It helps to have candles here, too).

The shades are drawn. You are in the bed

and around the foot stand several solemn young people looking

vaguely like the face you shave each day.

She prays in a chair beside you,

her fingers touching your forearm.

They are gnarled and pale as roots - a hag's fingers.

What hair she has is white and brittle.

Her eyes have all but disappeared

into the flesh of her face.

Her voice grates on your ears

like a child's violin.

Now, if you find her absolutely essential to the scene,

if the thought of her not being there

feels empty in your stomach

and full in your throat,

then, perhaps, she is the one."[8]

It is the last stanza that reaches out and commands my attention. All the romantic love imagery is overwhelmed by that last image - the death-bed scene - one's children solemnly observe the spectacle of their dying father - one's lover over the long years with gnarled hands and thin white hair is the presence that sustains. In the words of the Persian poet Rumi, "the tale was brief, the words were few, the meaning was immense."

Note the movement of the poem from the superficially romantic touch of hand on arm to the last touch of life with life over the shared years. Early on was the passionate "falling in love" with its sexual splendor. At the end we behold the discipline of love as commitment to the well-being of another over time. From love's passion to love's compassion in the space of a stanza. "I've grown accustomed to your face."

The "acid test" lies not in this sermon, but in what I - what we - decide to do in the moments, hours, years, left to us; what we are to do with these oh so fragile human relationships that tremble at times like so many dried weeds bent by the winter's wind yet are as persistent as new grass in the spring sun.

We are, therefore, we love.

Cosmic bits of mass and energy

Come to life together.

We love, therefore we are.

May we be humble before the awesomeness

Of what we dare to create.

1. Morton Kelsey, Companions of the Inner Way?

2. Quoted in Joshua Halberstam, Everyday Ethics: Inspired Solutions to Real Life Dilemmas (New York: Viking Press, 1993), p. 25.

3. Rochester Democrat and Chronicle, 2/12/00, p. 4c.

4. Madelein L'Engle's Two Part Invention: The Story of a Marriage.

5. "What's Next for Our Marriage?" Cokie and Steve Roberts, USA Weekend, 1/28-30/00, p. 7.

6. Robert Fulghum, The Rituals of Our Lives From Beginning to End, New York: Ivy Books, 1995, p. 154.

7. Reprinted in Great Occasions edited by Carl Seaburg, Boston: Beacon Press, 1968, p. 125.

8. Joseph Meredith, "The Acid Test: Advice to My Son," The American Scholar, Spring 1984, 194-6 (The Mary Elinore Smith Poetry Prize)