As soon as I hit “Post” on this blog, I’ll start packing enough things to spend three days in a city just over an hour from where I live. I’m driving there to officiate at a wedding.
The bride is a woman I have known since she was about twelve. I confirmed her into church membership. Her parents are dear friends of ours. She is an intelligent, charming, full-of-life, lovely person. Her fiance is also intelligent, grounded, kind, and gracious. They are professionally successful. Mature. Sincerely spiritual. All the good adjectives one can come up with. They are also obviously “in love.”
An interesting thing about this couple is that they fell in love before they realized they were in love. I’ll refer to that in the wedding homily. They are co-workers who have known each other for years and years. They grew close and began spending time together. When others in the office would inquire about the nature of their relationship, each would answer, “We’re just friends.” They thought they were being honest. Apparently their work companions knew better. As I said, they fell in love before they realized they were in love.
So, what did they fall into? “Love” is one of those words, according to the late Frederick Buechner, that gets tossed around so much that it begins to bounce off whoever hears it. Hallmark. Hollywood. Advertisements. Most of the music we hear. Daily conversations when people tell us of their love for this type of clothing or that kind of food, this performer or that ball team. Unless one is a hermit, we probably hear the word “love” more than we hear the word “hello.” And so, we tend to stop paying attention, stop pondering its meaning. As Simon and Garfunkel put it in The Sounds of Silence, we become those who are “hearing without listening.” Love. What did that couple fall into?
The traditional marriage vows expand the word by use of the phrase: “to love and to cherish.” It’s like a pair of scissors. A scissor (singular) doesn’t cut anything. Love, if it’s what you base your future on, has to include the other half of the phrase, which is “cherish.” The literal definition of “cherish” is “to revere and delight in.” To “revere” is to “hold as holy” – in other words, to see the other person as a gift. Their presence in your life is no accident. They were given to you, as you were to them. Think of Tom Cruise’s famous line to Renee Zellweger in Jerry Maguire: “You complete me.” The other person is a gift that helps make you whole. You could live without them, but your life wouldn’t be as full, as enriched, as satisfied, as “complete.” That’s the “revere” part.
“To revere and delight in.” Without the other person, your life wouldn’t be as happy, joyous, courageous, peaceful. A nephew toasted his aunt and uncle at their 50th wedding anniversary. He said, jokingly: “Fifty years. Wow! That’s a long time to spend with one person.” Gazing at his wife, his face filled with endearment, the young man’s uncle replied: “It would’ve been a lot longer without her.” “To delight in.” To trust. To lean on. To partner with. To share. To be able sometimes just to breathe more easily when you see the other person there.
All this applies to wives and husbands who genuinely love. It also applies to parents and their children, as well as to deep and trusted friends. Love comes in a variety of shapes, sizes, and definitions. In the end, if it’s the real deal, it always includes “to revere and delight in.”
That’s what the wedding couple has fallen into. I can tell when I’m around them that they truly love one another. Equally important, I can tell that they cherish one another. Those of us who have discovered that in our own lives can’t stop ourselves from smiling when we recognize all the two of them will discover as time passes.