The institution of marriage was begun
that a man and a woman
might learn how to love
and, in loving, know joy;
that a man and a woman
might learn to share pain and loneliness
and, in sharing, know strength;
that a man and a woman
might learn to give
and, in giving, know communion.

The institution of marriage was begun
that a man and a woman
might through their joy,
their strength and their communion,
become creators of life itself.
Marriage is a high and holy state,
to be held
in honor
among all men and women.
Marriage is a low and common state,
to be built
of the stuff
of daily life.
Men and women are not angels, nor are they gods.
Love can become hatred;joy, sorrow,
marriage, divorce.
But human beings are not condemned to failure.
Love can grow even in a real world.
The wounds of sorrow can be healed,
And new life built on the learnings of the old.

This is the reason for our gathering today:
to renew our faith
in the strength of hope
and the power of love.
~ Kenneth W. Phifer ~

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Love is the simplest of all earthy things.
It needs no grandeur of celestial trust
In more than what it is, no holy wings:
It stands with honest feet in honest dust.
And is the body’s blossoming in clear air
Of trustfulness and joyance when alone
Two mortals pass beyond the hour’s despair
And claim that Paradise which is their own.
Amid a universe of sweat and blood,
Beyond the glooms of all the nations’ hate,
Lovers, forgetful of the poisoned mood
Of the loud world, in secret ere too late
A gentle sacrament may celebrate
Before their private altar of the good.
~ Arthur Davison Ficke ~

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Love is patient; love is kind;
love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way;
it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in truth.
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child,
I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child;
when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then we will see face to face.
Now I know only in part;
then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three;
and the greatest of these is love.
~ 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 ~