Natural

 

(Last week I had the honor of officiating at the wedding of two women and the best part was when the dad of one of the brides spoke about how happy he is that his daughter is happy. And that right there my friends is the gay agenda.)

Photo of a person with breasts wearing a yellow top with spaghetti straps, showing their natural body hair in their armpits.

When I asked J* and J* for a word to describe their relationship, a theme for this marriage ceremony, they replied with the word “natural”. Naturally I answered with “You make me feel like a natural woman” but I also heard something more than that. I heard authentic, trustworthy, true. What a gift to be in a relationship, whether it is friendship or marriage, at work or school, at home or in community, in which we can be our natural selves without fear, all of who we are, and know that we belong. What a gift that is to give to someone else, for them to know that with you they belong. What a gift that is to give to ourselves, to know that within ourselves we belong. The unbreakable, unshakeable covenant of being human together.



And yet having the gift of being natural with one another does not mean there will be no conflict, that life will not be messy. In fact, it guarantees the opposite. Which is one of the reasons why sometimes we hide who we are or deny ourselves, why we harm each other and ourselves. We’ve been taught to avoid conflict rather than grow through it. To be sure, there are times that a relationship has come to an end or it must end for the sake of everyone involved. Yet we mustn’t kid ourselves that a healthy relationship lacks conflict. Being human together can mean being joyful together but it can also mean being flawed together. Do we have the courage, the deep love to not only see our beloved for all of who they are, but to allow ourselves to be seen in all our imperfect glory?



I found this piece of wisdom bouncing around on the internet. I have no idea who wrote it but it sounds like they’ve read 1 Corinthians: “The truth is that the more intimately you know someone, the more clearly you’ll see their flaws. That’s just the way it is. This is why relationships fail, why some marriages fail, why children are abandoned, why friendships don’t last.



“You might think you love someone until you see the way they act when they’re in stressful situations, when they’re out of money or under pressure or hungry, anxious, or when they’re under depression.



“For goodness’ sake…Love is something different. Love is choosing to stay and try your best to work it out. Love is choosing to be with someone in spite of their unstable, filthy, yet caring and loving heart. Love is patient and kind, love is deliberate. Love is hard. Love is pain and sacrifice. Love is choosing someone to struggle with. It’s seeing the darkness in another person and defying the impulse to jump ship.



“It’s seeing the imperfection in someone and yet you’re choosing to love every bit of their soul, till the end of the time.”



Which is why marriage vows are not just about the good stuff we get to enjoy, but the difficult stuff we cannot predict or imagine. In truth, we really don’t know what we’re getting into when we join our fate to someone else’s, when we join our fate to community, and yet we do it anyway. Thank goodness we don’t have to do it alone. We gather our friends and our families together, in effect, saying we can’t do this without you, we wouldn’t be here without you. We invoke the love of God, in effect, saying that this love is bigger and deeper and more mysterious than anything we can comprehend. It is a love that is holy and makes us want to celebrate with our whole selves.



And so, J* and J*, our deep thanks for inviting us to bear witness, to be reminded of our own love commitments, to be community for you, and to celebrate your love and this new family with you. Amen.