Something To Say

Vested: In law: fixed; settled; absolute; not contingent upon anything.

Much to my surprise the couple whom I am marrying . . . that doesn't sound right.  I'm not marrying them -- I'm already married.  I'm conducting the service which will conclude with them being married to each other.  I actually get to say: "With the authority vested in me by the State of Ohio, I now pronounce you husband and wife."  Sheesh, our societal structure has to be breaking down if someone like me gets to say something like that and have it be legally sanctioned by anybody.

The point is that they asked me to write a sermon? remarks? barely coherent free association? to be delivered during the ceremony.  I thought I would be reading some brief remarks from a standard marriage template or something that the couple wrote themselves.

"I want to hear what you have to say," the woman told me.

I'm not so sure that will be the case. 

Nevertheless, it made me think about how people pursuing a spiritual life -- in The Fellowship, in a church, however, wherever -- do grow and change as individuals.  When I was drinking no one wanted to hear what I had to say about love and relationships and what it means to live a spiritual life.  They didn't want to hear what I had to say about much of anything.

But when I started to think about what I would say, I found out that I had something to say.   I don't mean to suggest that the remarks are especially profound or anything, and nobody else at the wedding may think so either.  But I know that when I listen to people in The Rooms who have been sober for a while and have put in the work and continue to put in the work, I find that they often have something to say, something meaningful.

This is one of those promise-y things I didn't value when I started this journey.