Joshua and Katheryn are One  5/23/2015

 

The Binding

 

As we bind you together today

You will turn your hearts toward each other

And as Jesus said to Peter Where there is a binding

There is also a loosing

On this day when we bind you together

We loose you from loneliness

From two ones we will make two made one

Blessed be the Lord God who does this thing!

 

Sacrifice Ceremony

 

Kat and Josh explained that the items they were burning were symbolic of their past, single life professing that they were giving up these things for the marriage union

 

Swords Ceremony

 

We have been warriors

Protecting our selves

But love is surrendering to each other.

Under the banner of the Lord God of heaven

 

Pronouncement

 

Inasmuch as you have been bound together

And sacrificed your single selves

And inasmuch as you have surrendered to each other

Through the strength of heaven,
The light of the sun,
The radiance of the moon,
In the name of the Holy Trinity

I pronounce you husband and wife.

 

The Introduction

 

I have the privilege and pleasure to introduce you all to

Katheryn Dawn Dusk and

Joshua Dylan Dusk-Peebles

 

Final Blessing

 

May you feel no rain, for each of you will be a shelter to the other.

May you feel no cold, for each of you will be warmth to the other.

May there be no loneliness for you;

Though you are two persons, there is one life before you.

Go to your dwelling lodge to enter into the days of your togetherness.

And may the Lord God reign therein.

 

 

 

Katheryn and Joshua Wedding

 

I want to talk a bit about love

I am proud to be Katheryn’s grandfather

By virtue of the love her grandmother and I shared

We had a kind of fairy-tale relationship

And I would like to share some of the things

We talked about concerning our love

For each other and Christian love in general.

 

We noticed that, even though

It sounds like heresy in our romantic culture,

In those societies where parents

Make the marital relationship agreements

With other parents

Husbands end up loving their wives

And wives love their husbands

Dawn and I found this truth:

It does not matter how love starts

It matters how it grows

 

We found in the Song of Solomon

a vision of where love is growing to.

There are two parallel expressions of love

In the Song of Solomon

The first one is in Chapter . 2:16

“My Beloved is mine and I am his.”

Yes, it sounds like ownership

But it is mutual ownership

One might say I own and I am owned.

But I don’t think the people who say it are thinking,

Love is getting to run someone else’s life

But on the other hand it’s nice to know

You have an effect on someone else

Because someone else cares for you.

We might illustrate this love like this

When I text you it means that I am missing you

When I do not text you it means that

I am waiting for you to miss me.

Love is a small seed that yearns to grow

Love is powerful because love is God and God is love

Love changes you

It makes you a better person

And love brings peace and rest to you

Here is what we discovered:

 

The second verse in the Song of Solomon, chapter 7:10 reads,

I am my beloveds and his desire is toward me.

This is what love wants to grow into

It is the agape love of I Corinthians 13

The highest love the Bible knows

It is the love where the other person

Is more important to you than yourself

It is the love that sacrifices itself for the loved one.

C.S. Lewis was an old bachelor

Who studied love academically

But finally learned the real thing

in his marriage to Joy Davidman

He said, “Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish

for the loved person’s ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.” 

He said it like a teacher

But lived it like a lover

Here is how agape lovers argue

“Honey where would you like to eat out tonight

“Oh, wherever you would like, munchkins.

“But sweetheart, I want to go where you want

“Well, me too darling I want to go where you choose

And so it goes until one of them chooses

The place they think the other would like.

 

In marriage agape love has to be mutual

Or it will be a rocky road.

Both Dawn and I had experienced that.

 

You know the saying, from President Kennedy

“Think not what you can do for yourself

Think what you can do for your country”

It warms our patriotic hearts

But what if Joseph Stalin had said it

Then it would be cold and calculating.

The saying only works

If your country is also thinking

What it can do for you.

Agape lover says Matt. 6: ²⁵ , do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear”

Yes, God is the original agape lover

And His desire is that we learn to love Him

In that way also.

So this is where marital love is bursting to grow

I am yours and I know your desire is toward me

 

One evening Dawn and I were editing one of my poems

As we were finishing I was thanking her for helping so much

She turned to me and said

It is my greatest pleasure in life to make other people shine.

Could she have said, I love you, better than that?

 

 

The Symbolism

 

Some people have asked about the symbolism of Katheryn and Joshua’s wedding. They asked all the guests to come as ancient Viking-like warriors with which their friends complied wonderfully. Everyone did their own costume in honor of their wishes. We were truly going to war in a sense; the kind of war Jesus announced when he said “The kingdom of Heaven is at hand.” The life of Jesus from His birth to the Ascension was a taking over of the dominion of this world. As creator, Jesus rightfully owns everything in this world. What we did in the wedding was to take these pagan symbols and deliver them over to Jesus. We took the devil’s music, as it were, and redeemed it. 

 

 

 

Toilers of the Sea

There is a Rock out in the sea,

It is called “The Chair,”

High backed, like a throne,

A place to be a king . . . for once.

To leave it safely,

A strong man must outrun the tide.

Or when you have finished your work,

Too tired for the race,

It is a good place to have died, royally.

 

(A poem based on Victor Hugo's book of the same name.)

I was eleven years old, sitting in the Principal’s office

In Lincoln Grade school, Eau Claire, Wisconsin.

 

I was liquefied in in the middle section of my body

if you know what that means.

Thinking of what he knew that brought the intercom call,

“Mr. Peterson, would you send Curtiss Mortimer

to the principal’s office.”

Maybe it was beating up Jimmy Sievert after school yesterday,

Or was it hocking those candy bars at Gordy’s Grocery

Why was I so scared?

Because I needed my parents not to know

about this side of my young existence.

 

Well, you know and I know now

that they knew

 

But I didn’t know it then.

I thought I had my Mr. Hyde well hidden

behind Curtie Dr. Jeckle Lynn, hero of the Sunday School.

My teacher, Mr. Peterson was trying to reform me

I could tell.

We had some nice talks

that I’m sure he felt good about.

But it didn’t change me.

 

Then came the second week in November,

our church, the Wesleyan Methodists

held revival services the second week in November.

I guess they thought God got heated up

Every second week in November.

I know the preacher was hoping

I’d get a little burned over

with revival fire

 

before the week was done

because on the second day of the meetings,

out in the vestibule

he asked me

“Curt, how long are you going to let the devil

Have control of your life?”

I was totally speechless.

How did he know?

 

The veil between my two lives was rent

just as surely as the veil in the Temple

when Jesus died.

The unholy of unholys was open to view.

I felt ashamed of what I was doing

in my other life

That was the night I went to the altar.

That’s how they did it 60 years ago.

 

I wrote this poem many years later

about that experience,

 

Altar Rail Tears

 

 

Which of you molecules tumbled,

Through the tear in the Titanic?

And were you drawn down,

That deathdark whirl?

 

 

And who has had the joy of running red,

Mashed beneath merry feet?

Do you know the remembrance you hold,

When solemn church bells chime?

 

 

Who has known the slavery,

Of ferrying filth down to the sea?

And did you think that you were free,

When flung into the filthy heavens?

 

 

Perhaps you all learned patience,

Captives of the polar ice.

Silent power slowly slipping,

O'er a mountain's leveled plain.

 

Oh,you riches of wisdom and knowledge,

That fall so lightly down my cheek,

Is it you, that make me feel so clean?

 

 

I won’t go into detail

about the sobbing little boy

down at the altar.

 

He had a lot to talk to God about.

But afterward. . . afterword,

it was like going back to Genesis 1.

I was a pure, young, new Adam

exploring a world that was brand new.

My best pal was God.

 

They had a testimony section

in every service.

I was one of the first to jump up

and tell what new thing I was experiencing in God.

I didn’t know why I had wasted so much of my life.

I never knew sermons could be so interesting,

and now I loved to read the Bible

and my bad friends at school were losing interest in me

and I in their ideas for fun.

And even though I didn’t share this in church,

Mr. Peterson must have thought

those talks really did some good.

That old psychology class back in Normal School

had been beneficial after all.

Curtiss Mortimer was a brand new boy.

He never had to go to the principal’s office again.

 

 

Footprints of God

 

This is an autobiographical poem. How often I have prayed something like what Ps. 77 starts out with. Why doesn’t God do things today like He did in times past? The Psalmist is looking back to those times when God was then and there, pleading with God that he needed to be here and now for our present needs for miracles. In the poem I cite the three main religious explanations: 1. God doesn’t do miracles any more. 2. You don’t know what you are asking for. And 3. Make a splash for God in this world and you won’t need to depend on Him (because He’s not dependable?).

 

Where the Psalmist did see God was in the roiling waters, in the storm, the lightning and the whirlwind. Our family knows about those things. And that is where we have seen God in all his power, to take us through and bring us out the other side.

 

Why do we believe so strongly? It is because of the storms we have been through. It is in the chaos that we have found God in the here and now. That is why I chose the metaphor of the pond. God’s path for us led through the sea, through the mighty waters. God doesn’t leave footprints when He walks on water. Verse 19. So I have led a God obsessed life without seeing the footprints of God and I am as sure of Him as if I had been a eye-witness of the resurrection.

 

                Epitaph

            (Ps. 77 NIV)

 

 

It was an ancient pond,

 

Black the color of that deep, still pool.

 

Whitecaps not within the memory

Of one who watched along the edge.

He was one of them that wait.

 

His counselors long gone,

"This pool was made for peace," the first one said,

"No whirlpool for twenty centuries has appeared.

I saw some ripples once but they caused,

By pebbles from a small boy's hand."

And the second said, "Do you really want that storm?

Can you handle the wildness of God?

You will drown in the whirlpool of His stirring finger."

And the last: "God won't trouble the waters;

You must.  Jump in!

Make a mighty splash for God."

"Deluded!" said one.

"Tempting God!" said another.

"Indolent!" said the last.

Yet still he watched.  Even so he waited.

 

From the cold fingers of the dead,

They pried a wrinkled document that read,

"To this will I appeal:

The years of the right hand of the Most High."

From where the body lay they saw

The footprints of his soul lead down

Unto the water's edge and disappear,

And the sand lay in ripples on the shore.

Upon his pauper's stone they wrote,

"Here lies one whose path went through the seas,

Through the mighty waters,

Yet the footprints of his God were never seen."

 

 

Psalm 77^[a]

For the director of music. For Jeduthun. Of Asaph. A psalm.

¹ I cried out to God for help;
    I cried out to God to hear me.
² When I was in distress, I sought the Lord;
    at night I stretched out untiring hands,
    and I would not be comforted.

³ I remembered you, God, and I groaned;
    I meditated, and my spirit grew faint.^[b]
4 You kept my eyes from closing;
    I was too troubled to speak.
⁵ I thought about the former days,
    the years of long ago;
⁶ I remembered my songs in the night.
    My heart meditated and my spirit asked:

⁷ “Will the Lord reject forever?
    Will he never show his favor again?
⁸ Has his unfailing love vanished forever?
    Has his promise failed for all time?
⁹ Has God forgotten to be merciful?
    Has he in anger withheld his compassion?”

¹⁰ Then I thought, “To this I will appeal:
    the years when the Most High stretched out his right hand.
¹¹ I will remember the deeds of the Lord;
    yes, I will remember your miracles of long ago.
¹² I will consider all your works
    and meditate on all your mighty deeds.”

¹³ Your ways, God, are holy.
    What god is as great as our God?
¹⁴ You are the God who performs miracles;
    you display your power among the peoples.
¹⁵ With your mighty arm you redeemed your people,
    the descendants of Jacob and Joseph.

¹⁶ The waters saw you, God,
    the waters saw you and writhed;
    the very depths were convulsed.
¹⁷ The clouds poured down water,
    the heavens resounded with thunder;
    your arrows flashed back and forth.
¹⁸ Your thunder was heard in the whirlwind,
    your lightning lit up the world;
    the earth trembled and quaked.
¹⁹ Your path led through the sea,
    your way through the mighty waters,
    though your footprints were not seen.

²⁰ You led your people like a flock
    by the hand of Moses and Aaron.

The Root

 

There was a root in the Garden of Eden
That stuck out of the ground
An innocent root caught Adams toe
And cracked his new made crown
 
Why did you put that root right there
Said Adam to his maker
To punish me upon my pate?
And make of me a Quaker?
 
Dear Adam, said Creator God
What world would this world be
If all creation served the goal
Of your security
 
Where would the stories start or end
Tell what would be the plot
And how would heroes fight the fight
Gainst danger that is not.
 
You are the maker of your fate
I am the God of risk
You have the power of yes and no
Great stories come from this.