READING THREAD....LET'S START ONE!

here are my contributions.....
Excerpt from: The Bridge Across Forever
Richard Bach
A soulmate is someone who has locks that fit our keys, and keys to fit our locks. When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are; we can be loved for who we are and not for who we're pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one person we're safe in our own paradise. Our soulmate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. When we're two balloons, and together our direction is up, chances are we've found the right person. Our soulmate is the one who makes life come to life.


Love is a good above all other things. Love alone makes every burden light. Love is watchful, and while sleeping still keeps watch; thought fatigued is not weary; though pressed is not forced. Love is sincere, gentle, strong, patient, faithful, prudent, and longsuffering. Love is circumspect, humble, upright; not weary, not fickle, not intent on selfish things. Love is steadfast and quiet. The wise lover values not so much the gifts of the lover as the love of the giver.
~Thomas A. Kempis


The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran, contains many appropriate passages, such as the following, which captures the essence of the husband-and-wife union.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous,
but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone
though they quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.








THE MEANING OF TRUE LOVE - Thanks Debra Hart
the meaning of true love
it is sharing and caring, giving, and forgiving
love and being loved, walking hand in hand
talking heart to heart
seeing through each others eyes
laughing together, weeping together, praying together
and always trusting and believing
and thanking God for each other
for love that is shared is a beautiful thing
it enriches the soul and makes the heart sing

L o v e
by Roy Croft
I love you,
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.

I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what
You are making of me.
I love you
For the part of me
That you bring out;
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped-up heart
And passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can't help
Dimly seeing there,
And for drawing out
Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.


I love you because you
Are helping me to make
Of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern
But a temple;
Out of the works
Of my every day
Not a reproach
But a song.


I love you
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good
And more than any fate
Could have done
To make me happy.
You have done it
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign.
You have done it
By being yourself.
Perhaps that is what
Being a friend means,
After all.

I'm using this poem by Pablo Neruda for one of my readings:

Sonnet LXIX

Maybe nothingness is to be without your presence,
without you moving,
slicing the noon
like a blue flower,
without you walking
later through the fog and the cobbles,

without the light you carry in your hand,
golden,
which maybe others will not see,
which maybe no one knew was growing
like the red beginnings of a rose.

In short, without your presence:
without your coming
suddenly, incitingly, to know my life,
burst of roses, wheat of wind:

since then I am because you are,
since then you are, I am, we are,
and through love I will be, you will be, we'll be.

This is our reading by ee cummings

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in my heart)
i am never without it (anywhere i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear not fate (for you are my fate, my sweet)
i want no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you
here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows higher than soul can hope of mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that's keeping the stars apart
i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

For the Bride and Groom

Two hands to hold onto forever,
Two arms to be embraced by eternally,
Two eyes to gaze into for always,
Two lips to kiss so passionately.

Two souls fused by commitment,
Two names written in the stars above,
Two lives intertwined by God,
Two hearts joined by the purest of love.



FIDELITY by DH Lawrence

Man and woman are like the earth, that brings forth flowers
in summer, and love, but underneath is rock.
Older than flowers, older than ferns, older than foraminiferae,
older than plasm altogether is the soul underneath.
And when, throughout all the wild chaos of love
slowly a gem forms, in the ancient, once-more-molten rocks
of two human hearts, two ancient rocks,
a man's heart and a woman's,
that is the crystal of peace, the slow hard jewel of trust,
the sapphire of fidelity.
The gem of mutual peace emerging from the wild chaos of love.

1st Corinthians Chapter 13
Love is patient and kind, it is not jealous conceited or proud
Love in no ill-mannered or selfish or irritatable
Love does not keep a record or wrongs
Love is not happy with evil but is happy with the truth
Love never gives up, and it’s faith hope and patience never fail
Love is eternal

Sonnet 116
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remover:
O, no, it is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth’s unknown, although his height be taken.
Love’s not Time’s fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle’s compass come;
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
- William Shakespeare


Anam Cara (John O'Donohue)
When love awakens in your life, in the night of your heart, it is like the dawn breaking within you.
Where before there was anonymity, now there is intimacy;
where before there was fear, now there is courage;
where before in your life there was awkwardness, now there is a rhythm of grace and gracefulness;
where before you used to be jagged, now you are elegant and rhythm with yourself.
When love awakens in your life, it is like a rebirth, a new beginning. The soul needs love as urgently as it needs air. In the warmth of love, the soul can be itself. When love comes into your life, unrecognized dimensions of your destiny awaken and blossom and grow.

THIS IS MY NEW FAVORITE THREAD!!!



Why Marriage? by Mari Nichols

Because to the depths of me, I long to love one person,
With all my heart, my soul, my mind, my body...

Because I need a forever friend to trust with the intimacies of me,
Who won't hold them against me,
Who loves me when I'm unlikable,
Who sees the small child in me, and
Who looks for the divine potential of me...

Because I need to cuddle in the warmth of the night
With someone who thanks God for me,
With someone I feel blessed to hold...

Because marriage means opportunity
To grow in love in friendship...

Because marriage is a discipline
To be added to a list of achievements...

Because marriages do not fail, people fail
When they enter into marriage
Expecting another to make them whole...

Because, knowing this,
I promise myself to take full responsibility
For my spiritual, mental and physical wholeness
I create me,
I take half of the responsibility for my marriage
Together we create our marriage...

Because with this understanding
The possibilities are limitless.

The Passionate Shepherd to His Love
by Christopher Marlowe


Come live with me and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,
Woods or steepy mountain yields.

And we will sit upon the rocks,
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,
By shallow rivers to whose falls
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses
And a thousand fragrant posies,
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

A gown made of the finest wool
Which from our pretty lambs we pull;
Fair lined slippers for the cold,
With buckles of the purest gold;

A belt of straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my love.

The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing
For thy delight each May morning:
If these delights thy mind may move,
Then live with me and be my love,

I PROMISE
~ Dorothy Colgan ~


I promise to give you the best of myself
and to ask of you no more than you can give.

I promise to respect you as your own person
and to realise that your interests, desires and needs
are no less important than my own.

I promise to share with you my time and my attention
and to bring joy, strength and imagination to our relationship.

I promise to keep myself open to you,
to let you see through the window of my world into my innermost fears
and feelings, secrets and dreams.

I promise to grow along with you,
to be willing to face changes in order to keep our relationship alive and exciting.

I promise to love you in good times and in bad,
with all I have to give and all I feel inside in the only way I know how.
Completely and forever.

******
I would use these for my vows, but I'd never make it through!


(Needed a bump for the night owls)

wow, i love this thread!!!
we are using some parts of this irish blessing
May the road rise to meet you.
May the wind be always at your back.
May the sun shine warm upon your face.
And rains fall soft upon your fields.
And until we meet again,
May God hold you in the hollow of His hand.


May you live as long as you want,
And never want as long as you live.


Always remember to forget
The things that made you sad.
But never forget to remember
The things that made you glad.

Always remember to forget
The friends that proved untrue.
But never forget to remember
Those that have stuck by you.

Always remember to forget
The troubles that passed away.
But never forget to remember
The blessings that come each day.


May the saddest day of your future be no worse
Than the happiest day of your past.


May the roof above us never fall in.
And may the friends gathered below it never fall out.


May you have warm words on a cold evening,
A full moon on a dark night,
And the road downhill all the way to your door.


May there be a generation of children
On the children of your children.


May you live to be a hundred years,
With one extra year to repent!


May the Lord keep you in His hand
And never close His fist too tight.


May your neighbors respect you,
Trouble neglect you,
The angels protect you,
And heaven accept you.


May the Irish hills caress you.
May her lakes and rivers bless you.
May the luck of the Irish enfold you.
May the blessings of Saint Patrick behold you.


May your pockets be heavy and your heart be light,
May good luck pursue you each morning and night.


Walls for the wind,
And a roof for the rain,
And drinks beside the fire -
Laughter to cheer you
And those you love near you,
And all that your heart may desire!


May God be with you and bless you,
May you see your children's children,
May you be poor in misfortune, rich in blessings.
May you know nothing but happiness
From this day forward.


May God grant you many years to live,
For sure He must be knowing
The earth has angels all too few
And heaven is overflowing.


May peace and plenty be the first
To lift the latch to your door,
And happiness be guided to your home
By the candle of Christmas.


May you always have work for your hands to do.
May your pockets hold always a coin or two.
May the sun shine bright on your windowpane.
May the rainbow be certain to follow each rain.
May the hand of a friend always be near you.
And may God fill your heart with gladness to cheer you.

and i love this one too!

The Apache Wedding Prayer
'Now you will feel no rain,
for each of you will be
shelter for the other;
Now you will feel no cold,
for each of you will be
warmth to the other;
Now you are two, but there
is one life before you.
Go now to your dwelling place
to enter into the days
of your togetherness
And may yor lives
be good, be happy,
and be long upon this earth.'

A WEDDING BLESSING

As you join in marriage, may life always be a shared adventure, marked by a sense of personal freedom, as well as mutual responsibility. May you find in each other companionship as well as love; understanding as well as compassion; challenge as well as agreement.

May the home you establish be an island where the pressures of the world can be sorted out and brought into focus; where tensions can be released and understood; where personal needs do not tower over concern for others and where the warmth of humor and love puts crisis into perspective.

And above all, may you find an ever richer joy in loving and learning together

A CELEBRATION OF MARRIAGE

A REFLECTION

'If you were to measure time in kisses, then eons have gone by since that brief shy one, when you first suspected that you had met someone rare and wonderful. It left you dizzy and breathless, then; you retreated to your room smiling crazily to yourself.

Now your heart is brave with love, and your kiss is no longer a question. It is a statement; Yes, I am yours and lucky me, you are mine'

Author Anonymous

this is also an interesting site. http://www.usabride.com/vows_passages/wed_vows.html


and there are too many wonderful ones on this page
http://www.documentsanddesigns.com/verse/wedding_prayers.htm#1

No, but my FH and I are using part of our ceremony to present 'Family Medallions' to our children (He has a 7 yr old son & I have a 13 yr old son) We want them to feel part of the ceremony too.

But I will keep my eye out for an appropriate reading.

In the meantime,


Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Sonnets from the Portuguese, 43


How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the ends of Being and ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of everyday's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise.
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints—I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life!—and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.

bump for new ones

I love this idea...lets keep it going!!!!



To my parents on my wedding day

You showed me how to stand up tall
You taught me that God's there through it all
I was your first, I made you a proud Mom and Dad
Now we look at the good and bad times that we had

You always told me to lead a good life
Well now I'm going to be a wife
You weren't ready for this day to come
Now I ask that you'll love him like a son

On this day as Daddy walked my down the aisle
I looked at you Mom and remember that I have your lovely smile
People used to tell me that I looked like you
And I was always trying to prove it wasn't true

But now as I look back, I'm happy
For you helped build the woman in me
You taught me that beauty is on the inside
Well someone saw that beauty and took me as a bride

SO I thank you both on this special day
And I hope you accept my loving husband
Because he loves your daughter in every way
And someday we'll pass the love onto our children

just wante dto clarify....this is obviously not for the church but something i was going to put in my program


i dont have any reading saved...only short poems and such Ive saved


please dont be mad that i didnt do it exact

bump


anyone else want to contribute---we should keep this going

i love this thread!!!! i just started looking at readings, this is a poem i want to put in my program for my father....what do you think??

To my Dad

Dear Daddy I miss you so,
more than anyone will ever know.
I always dreamed of you giving me away
on this my wedding day.

Well Dad, that day is finally here
and I find it very hard not to shed a tear.

Please look down on us from above,
and be very confident of our love.
My wedding is a dream come true,
even though I am without you.

I know as my veil is lifted,
the soft breeze on my cheek,
is really your kiss that i seek.

author unknown

here are more
As I stand here today with the world as my witness,
I pledge to you my undying and everlasting love.
I will stand beside you as your partner,
I will stand before you as your protector,
And I will stand behind you as your solace.
Please spend and end your life with me