Words & Music
From "West of Yesterday, East of Summer" by Paul Monette
Read by Terry Barwegen
When I first saw you I thought you must be
looking at someone else, someone you
were meeting at a station. You looked so glad
to have the man behind me home again,
as if you would carry all his baggage
till he was weightless. The way you carry
mine now, for I was the one getting off.
How did you know I'd been traveling
in circles, gone so long there was no one
left to fetch me? Gone so long avoiding
the water you seemed a sort of mirage
until I drank you. Let alone this ocean
wild with sirens, a raft in a whirlpool
for our bed, spinning at anchor, drown-proof.
As to rank, if it's okay I'll be a pirate.
You be captain–so long as you show me how
to navigate a dream that goes this deep.
From “The Prophet”, by Kahlil Gibran
Read by Al Beyer
Your friend is your needs answered. He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving. And he is your board and your fireside. For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.
When your friend speaks his mind you fear not the "nay" in your own mind, nor do you withhold the "ay." And when he is silent your heart ceases not to listen to his heart. For in friendship, all thoughts, all desires, all expectations are born without words and shared with joy that is unacclaimed.
When you part from your friend, you grieve not. For that which you love most in him may be clearer in his absence, as the mountain to the climber is clearer from the plain.
For love that seeks aught but the disclosure of its own mystery is not love but a net cast forth: and only the unprofitable is caught.
And let your best be for your friend. If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also. For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill? Seek him always with hours to live. For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures. For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
From the words of R.M.Rilke
Read by Judi Alstatt
To love is good, too: love being difficult. For one human being to love another human being: that is perhaps the most difficult of all our tasks, the ultimate, the final test and proof, the work for which all other work is merely preparation.
Loving does not mean merging, giving over, and uniting with another person (for what would a union be of two people who are unclarified and unfinished, still incoherent?). Loving is a high inducement for the individual to ripen, to become something in himself, to become world, to become world for himself for another’s sake. It is a great, demanding claim on him that chooses him out and calls him to vast things.
The demands, which the difficult work of love makes upon our development, are more than life-size, and as beginners we are not up to them. But if we nevertheless endure and take this love upon us as burden and apprenticeship, instead of losing ourselves in all the light and frivolous play, behind which people have hidden from the most earnest earnestness of their existence - then a little progress will perhaps be perceptible to those who come long after us.
And this more human love (which will fulfill itself, infinitely considerate and gentle, and kind and clear in binding and releasing) will resemble what we are preparing with struggle and toil: the love that consists in this, that two solitudes protect and border and greet each other.
May I Suggest, by Susan Werner
Performed by Jeannie Fisher and Judi Alstatt
May I suggest
May I suggest to you
May I suggest this is the best part of your life
May I suggest
This time is blessed for you
This time is blessed and shining almost blinding bright
Just turn your head
And you'll begin to see
The thousand reasons that were just beyond your sight
The reasons why
Why I suggest to you
Why I suggest this is the best part of your life
There is a world
That's been addressed to you
Addressed to you, intended only for your eyes
A secret world
Like a treasure chest to you
Of private scenes and brilliant dreams that mesmerise
A lover's trusting smile
A tiny baby's hands
The million stars that fill the turning sky at night
Oh I suggest
Oh I suggest to you
Oh I suggest this is the best part of your life
There is a hope
That's been expressed in you
The hope of seven generations, maybe more
And this is the faith
That they invest in you
It's that you'll do one better than was done before
Inside you know
Inside you understand
Inside you know what's yours to finally set right
And I suggest
And I suggest to you
And I suggest this is the best part of your life
This is a song
Comes from the west to you
Comes from the west, comes from the slowly setting sun
With a request
With a request of you
To see how very short the endless days will run
And when they're gone
And when the dark descends
Oh we'd give anything for one more hour of light
And I suggest this is the best part of your life
Apache Blessing
Read by Sara Hawkins
Now you will feel no rain, for each of you will be the shelter for each other. Now you will feel no cold, for each of you will be the warmth for the other. Now you are two persons, but there is only one life before you. Go now to your dwelling place to enter into the days of your life together, and may your days be good and long upon the earth.
Treat yourselves and each other with respect, and remind yourselves often of what brought you together. 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 one time or another - remember to focus on what is right between you, not only the part which seems wrong. In this way, you can ride out the storms when clouds hide the face of the sun in your lives - remembering that even if you lose sight of it for a moment, the sun is still there. And if each of you takes responsibility for the quality of your life together, it will be marked by abundance and delight.
Psalm 23
Read by Scott Beyer
The Lord is my shepherd, I have all I need.
She makes me lie down in green meadows; beside the still waters, she will lead.
She restores my soul. She rights my wrongs.
She leads me on a path of good things, and fills my heart with song.
Even though I walk through a dark and dreary land,
There is nothing that can shake me. She has said she won’t forsake me. I’m in her hand.
She sets a table before me in the presence of my foes.
She anoints my head with oil, and my cup overflows.
Surely, surely goodness and kindness will follow me all the days of my life
And I will live in her house forever and ever.
Glory be to our mother and Daughter, and to the Holy of Holies
As it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.
Amen.