SAMPWED.JTM - A non-theistic wedding ceremony by James T. McCollum
              well suited to mixed faith marriages, where the
              couple are basically Humanists
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                       The Wedding Ceremony

                                of

             ANGUS ANDREW MALCOLM and FLORA MacDONALD


                              at the

      Pullman Memorial Universalist Church, Albion, New York

                       on 22 December 1993




OPENING WORDS:

We are gathered here, not to witness the beginning of what will 
be, but rather what already is!  We do not create this marriage, 
because we cannot.  We can and do, however, celebrate with 
Angus, Flora and their families the wondrous and joyful occurrence 
that has already taken place in their lives.

So let the celebration begin!



THE PROCESSIONAL:

    Trumpet Tune in D, by Henry Purcell

        Bridal Chorus from Loehengrin, by Richard Wagner

            Heather MacLeod - Organ



THE CELEBRATION OF MARRIAGE:

Marriage is a supreme sharing of experience and an adventure in 
the most intimate of human relationships.  It is the joyous 
uniting of a man and a woman whose comradeship and mutual 
understanding have flowered into romance.  Today Flora and Angus 
proclaim their love to the world and we who are gathered here 
rejoice with them and for them in the new life they now undertake 
together.

Marriage is universally regarded as one of the crucial events of 
human life, taking its place with those other two - the coming 
hither in birth and the departure from life through death.

The joy we now feel is a solemn joy because the act of marriage is 
fraught with weighty consequences, both social and personal.  By  
this marriage you two will reach a new social status and rise to a 
new plane of social dignity.  But, also, with the founding of the 
family, there come the most difficult tasks and exacting 
disciplines which fall to our human lot.

Your marriage requires "love," which is a word often used with 
vagueness and sentimentality.  We mean something very real, when 
we bind ourselves in love.  It can mean sweet freedom and 
fulfillment.  When we love we see things other people do not see.  
We see beneath the surface and observe qualities which make this 
one different from and dearer than all others.  To see with loving 
eyes is to know inner beauty and to be loved is to be seen and 
known as we are known to no other.

Such love means security.  Each of us would like to have an 
absolute security.  This we cannot have, but we come close to it 
when we are loved - when another human being wants us, wants to 
share life with us, accepts us, without qualification or 
reservation, not as perfect, but as human, with strengths and 
weaknesses.

The love of which we speak is not static.  It is a growing and 
dynamic relationship.  We dream that tomorrow we will grow and 
fulfill our possibilities.  It is a blessing when someone believes 
in our dream of ourselves and wants to live with us and help make 
dreams and aspirations come true.

Love of this sort can grow.  It is not, like youth, a moment that 
comes and is gone, remaining only a memory of something which 
cannot be recovered.  It can grow because it has something to grow 
upon and grow with.  It does not become contracted and stale, 
because it has for its object all the objects with which the two 
lovers are concerned.  Love endures only when the lovers love many 
things together and not merely each other.

True love breeds unlimited courage and confidence.  Such courage 
and confidence we know are yours as you continue your lives 
together under the ever embracing bond of marriage.  In addition 
to the fund of affection and thoughtful consideration which you 
have for one another, you will need a capacity for self-sacrifice, 
patience and forbearance, for this is no light adventure which you 
are undertaking. 

The secret of love and marriage is that of religion itself.  It is 
the emergence of the larger self.  It is the finding of one's life 
by losing it.  Such is the privilege of husband and wife - to be 
each himself, herself and yet another; to face the world strong, 
with the courage of two.

The high and fine art of married life is in this mutual 
enrichment, mental and spiritual, this give and take between two 
personalities, this mingling of two endowments which depletes 
neither, but enables each.  The more he or she gives, to receive 
only the more.

Marriage is dedication.  You give yourself, your life and love, 
into the hands of the one you love.  You do so trustingly and 
generously.  By the same token, each  of you receives a gift - the 
life and love of the other.  You receive this gift not only from 
the one you love, but also from the parents who brought you into 
the world and reared you and from the personal world of friends 
and family who are joined in friendship and faith in your 
marriage.

Angus and Flora believe that there should be equality between men 
and women in every relevant way and that it is especially 
important for this principle to be recognized in the marriage 
relationship.  Marriage must be a cooperative venture in every 
sense.  It is a relationship based on love, respect and a 
determination on the part of both wife and husband to adjust to 
each other's temperaments and moods - in health or sickness, joy 
or sadness, ease or hardship.

We are here to share your joy and hope and to speed you along the 
path which, henceforth, you are to tread together.  May it be the 
path of blessedness, bright with the fragrant flowers of 
prosperity and spiritual conquest;  a path of deepening and 
widening love that you shall travel arm in arm throughout 
eternity. 


Reading by Ian Campbell:

                      Song of the Open Road

       Listen!  I will be honest with you.  I do not offer the old
       smooth prizes, but I offer rough new prizes.

       These are the days that must happen to you:
       You shall not heap up what is called riches,
       You shall scatter with lavish hand all that you earn or
       achieve.
       However sweet the laid-up stores.

       However convenient the dwelling,
       You shall not remain there.
       However sheltered the port, and however calm the waters,
       You shall not anchor there.
       However welcome the hospitality that welcomes you,
       You are permitted to receive it but a little while.
 
       Afoot and lighthearted, take to the open road, 
       Healthy, free, the world before you,
       The long brown path before you leading wherever you choose.

       Say only to  one another:

       Comerado, I give you my hand!
       I give you my love more precious than money,
       I give you myself before preaching or law:
       Will you give me yourself?


       Will you come travel with me?
       Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?

                                                     Walt Whitman


The Ceremony of the Candles:

Our community is shared, if in a different way, by those who have 
passed beyond this life.  Their roles in the lives of Flora and 
Angus are no less remembered and honored as we savor today's 
joyous moments.  Join with us, then, in fond memory of all these 
people, and in particular (Name/s of Deceased to be remembered).  
In their memory, let us be silent together.

In all the  quiet of this very special moment, we pause, also, to 
give thanks for all the rich experiences of life that have brought 
Flora and Angus to this high point in their lives.  We are 
grateful for the values which have flowed into them from those who 
have loved them and nurtured them and pointed them along life's 
way and for the values which they have found by their own 
strivings.  We are grateful that within them is the dream of a 
great love and the resources to use that love in creating a home 
that shall endure.

The heritage each brings to this marriage will continue to be an 
important element in their lives, but now will be shared between 
them.  In commemoration of the merging of these two rich heritages 
and in memory of those, living and dead, who were part of these 
heritages, I now invite Angus's parents and Flora's parents to 
bring forth lighted candles, representing each of the families of 
this couple.

Angus and Flora will now light the flaming chalice with these 
candles, symbolizing the union of their two families in this 
marriage and the rich heritage each brings to it.

As Flora and Angus light the chalice, they do not extinguish their 
flames.  Although they are embarking upon a new and unique 
relationship in the union of their lives in marriage, they, 
nonetheless, retain their own separate and unique identities and 
personalities.


(NOTE: The parents of the Bride and Groom each obtain a lighted 
candle from opposite sides of the front of the sanctuary or room 
in which the wedding is taking place, lighting it from stationary 
candles that have been burning throughout the service.  They, in 
turn, present the lighted candles to their respective child.  The 
couple then jointly light the flaming chalice at the center of the 
sanctuary.  This ceremony signifies the heritage each is bringing 
to the marriage and the blending of these two heritages.  If the 
third paragraph is used, the candles are not extinguished as the 
chalice is lit, but are placed in holders alongside. Appropriate 
music should accompany this ceremony)



THE COMMITMENT:

This celebration is the outward token of a sacred and inward union 
of hearts, which the church and temple may bless and the state 
make legal, but which neither state nor church can create or 
annul.  It is a union created by  your loving purpose and kept by 
your abiding will.  It is in this spirit and for this purpose that 
you have come here to be joined together.

Angus, will you have this woman to be thy wedded wife, to live 
together in marriage; will you love her, comfort her, and honor 
her, in sickness and in health, in sorrow and in joy, so long as 
you both shall live?

ANGUS:  I will!

Flora, will you take this man to be thy wedded husband, to live 
together in marriage; will you love him, comfort him, and honor 
him, in sickness and in health, in sorrow and in joy, so long as 
you both shall live?

FLORA:  I will!


Will all you, here present, promise and commit yourselves to 
support and uphold this union of these two people?

CONGREGATION:  Yes!


The Ceremony of the Rings

Traditionally, the marking of the passage to the status of husband 
and wife is marked by the exchange of rings.  These rings are a 
symbol of the unbroken circle of love.  Love freely given has no 
beginning and no end.  Love freely given has no giver and no 
receiver - for each is the giver and each is the receiver.  May 
these rings remind you always of the vows you have taken here 
today.

ANGUS: (Cued)  This ring, a gift for you, symbolizes my desire 
that you be my wife from this day forward.

FLORA: (Cued)  This ring, a gift for you, symbolizes my desire 
that you be my husband from this day forward.


Inasmuch as Flora and Angus have consented together in this 
ceremony to live in wedlock and have witnessed their vows in the 
presence of this company, by the giving and receiving of rings, it 
gives me great pleasure to now pronounce that they are husband and 
wife!



Treat yourselves and each other with respect, and remind 
yourselves often of what brought you together.  Take 
responsibility for making the other one feel safe, and give the 
highest priority to the tenderness, gentleness and kindness that 
your connection deserves.  When frustration, difficulty and fear 
assail your relationship, as they threaten all relationships at 
sometime or another, remember to focus on what is right between 
you, not only the part that seems wrong.  In this way, you can 
ride out the times when clouds drift across the face of the sun in 
your lives, remembering that, just because you may lose sight of 
it for a moment, does not mean the sun has gone away.  And, if 
each of you take total responsibility for the quality of your life 
together, it will be marked by abundance and delight.

You may now kiss!


The Toast to Life  (A Wine Toast)

The years of your lives are as a cup of wine poured out for you to 
drink.  The grapes when they are pressed give forth their good 
juices for the wine.  Under the wine press of time our lives give 
forth their labor and honor and love.

This cup contains within it the sweet wine of happiness and hope.  
This same cup, at times, holds the bitter wine of sorrow and 
despair.

One who drinks deeply of life invites the full range of experience 
into his or her being.

This cup is symbolic of the pledges you have made to one another 
to share together the fullness of life.

As you drink from this cup, you acknowledge that your lives, until 
this moment separate, have become one vessel  into which all your 
sorrows and joys, all your hopes and fears, will be poured, and 
from which you will receive mutual sustenance.

Many days you will sit at the same table and eat and drink 
together.

Drink now, and may the cup of your lives be sweet and full to 
overflowing.

                                                   Kenneth Patton


Hymn to be sung by the Congregation:


         Prayer for This House - Untermeyer/Quaile

       May nothing evil cross this door,


       And may illfortune never pry
       About these windows; may the roar
       And rain go by.

       By faith made strong, the rafters will
       Withstand the battering of the storm.
       This hearth, though all the world grow chill
       Will keep you warm.

       Peace shall walk softly through these rooms,
       Touching our lips with holy wine,
       Till every casual corner blooms
       Into a shrine.

       With laughter drown the raucous shout
       And, though these sheltering walls are thin,
       May they be strong to keep hate out
       And hold love in.

                       Hymn 159, Songs for the Celebration of Life
                                 Beacon Press, 1964
THE AFFIRMATION:

We know not what the future may bring into the lives of Angus and 
Flora, but we pray that together they may be equal to the needs of 
their tomorrows.  May they find patience in time of stress, 
strength in time of weakness, courage in time of discouragement, 
vision in time of doubt, and, in all time, a growing love.

We who are here present, and those who are absent, thinking of 
these two people, hope that the inspiration of this hour will not 
be forgotten.  May they continue to love one another forever.



                      APACHE WEDDING PRAYER

       Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be shelter
       for the other.

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

       Now you are two persons, but there is only one life before 
       you.

       Go now to your dwelling to enter into the days of your life 
       together.

       And may your days be good, and long upon the earth.

                                                      Traditional





THE RECESSIONAL:

    Mairi's Wedding (Lewis Bridal Song), Traditional

           Dugald MacCrimmon - Great Highland Pipes