Casey and Theresa’s Wedding

(Their interview with God)

July 9^th 2005 – Old St. Mary’s Church

Thoughts at a wedding

Thornton Wilder’s well-known play Our Town takes place at the very beginning of the 1900’s. Life is very very simple in a simple little town called Grovers Corners. A wedding is taking place, and one of characters is the stage manager who comes out and says, “There are a lot of things to be said about a wedding; there are a lot of thoughts that go on during a wedding."

The stage manager also takes the part of the clergyman who comes out and expresses his thoughts about weddings. "I've married two hundred couples in my day,” he says. “Do I believe in it? I don't know. So and so marries so and so, millions of them. The cottage, the go-cart, the Sunday afternoon drives in the Ford, the first rheumatism, the grandchildren, the second rheumatism, the deathbed, the reading of the will. Once in a thousand times it's interesting!" (Here the rubrics for the play direct the stage manager to look at the audience with a kind and warm smile to remove any appearance of cynicism in his surprising remark that, "Once in a thousand times it's interesting.")

Russian poet Yevtushenko in one of his poems writes about a procession with the Madonna which he came upon traveling through Italy. In the procession winding down a narrow street, there first came the unmarried maidens. He writes, “They were filled with hope, for their hour of deception had not yet arrived." Then came the married women. He writes, "They were heavily shuffling and undeceived."

Hope at a wedding

It is with great optimism and hope that we witness today the marriage between Casey and Theresa. For we know we are not joining together two starry-eyed kids but two human beings who have already put in their good share of suffering. We join together two old young people who, with the stage manager, are already wise enough to know that “once in a thousand times it’s interesting,” and who, with those married women heavily shuffling, are already, so early in life, quite undeceived about a lot of things.

This moment is the twelfth hour. The soup is already cooking, the cake has been baked, the wine poured and the rug has been rolled up. At this moment it's almost too late to do or say anything that will really make any difference at all. All the really important things that go into the mix of marriage, either for good or for bad, have already in some way been said or done. At this moment no last word of wisdom is going to amount to a hill of beans, neither for Casey and Theresa who are too nervous to hear what I am saying, nor for their guests whose thoughts of their own drown out what I am saying, for as that stage manager said,” There are a lot of thoughts that go on during a wedding."

Last minute wisdom at a wedding

At this moment no last word of wisdom is going to amount to a hill of beans, but I’ll take a try at it anyway. Once in a while you receive an e-mail that’s worth all the garbage you have to wade through to get to it. Not long ago I receive such an e-mail. It was an ensemble of words, music, magnificent scenes of mountains, and glaciers and running streams. I was impressed especially by the wisdom of the words. They are words of wisdom to live and die by, and especially to be married by. I doctored up the piece of e-mail a bit, and I entitle it, “Casey and Theresa’s Interview with God.” This is how it reads:

Once upon a time Casey and Theresa dreamed they had an interview with God. ”So, you would like to interview me?” God asked.

“If you have the time,” they said.

God smiled and said, “My time is eternity… What questions do you

have in mind for me?”

Casey and Theresa asked, “What surprises you most about humankind?”

And God answered:

ü “That they get bored with childhood, that they rush to grow up and then long to be children again.

ü That they lose their health to make money, and then lose their money to restore their health.

ü That by thinking anxiously about the future they forget the present, so that they live neither in the present nor in the future.

ü That they live as if they will never die, and they die as though they never lived.”

Silently God took both of their hands into his. And all were silent for a while. Then Casey and Theresa asked God, “As parents we’d like to know what are some of life’s lessons you want our children to learn?”

And God answered:

ü “To learn they cannot make anyone love them. All they can do is let themselves be loved.

ü To learn that it is not good to compare themselves with others.

ü To learn to forgive by practicing forgiveness.

ü To learn that it only takes a few seconds to open profound wounds in those you love. And it can take many years to heal them.

ü To learn that a rich person is not one who has the most, but the one who needs the least.

ü To learn that there are people who love them dearly but simply do not yet know how to express or show their feelings.

ü To learn that two people can look at the same thing and see it differently.

ü To learn that it is not enough that they forgive one another. They must also forgive themselves.”

“Thank you for your time,” Casey and Theresa said humbly. “Is there anything else you would like your children to know?”

God smiled and said, “Just know that I am here, ALWAYS!”