And the Two Shall Become On

“But at the beginning of creation God ‘made them male and female.’ ‘For this reason, a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’ So, they are no longer two, but one flesh.”  Mark 10:6-8

 

On December 20th, three years after my son Jack met Tara and two years after he proposed marriage to her, they were married.  What follows is the speech I gave at their wedding:

“On the day Jack was born, I sat down in his room looking at the empty crib.  It had been a long night.  His birth was difficult but he was finally out of the woods.  As I sat there, I heard a quiet voice say, “He belongs to the world.”  And so, it has been.  Jack is a “people person” all his life.  He picked a profession – social work, a noble calling – true to his nature. 

Like all children are to parents, he was on temporary loan to us and he went out into the world.

And today, he belongs to someone else – Tara!  And we have a daughter!

I first heard about Tara on Christmas Day 2019.  It was unseasonably warm, so Jack and I went on a walk at the Ott Biological Preserve.  The entire conversation was about this young woman he just met.  It was all “Tara this and Tara that.”

I asked him how they met.  He said it was at the Summit Pointe’s Christmas party at Firekeeper’s Casino.  Tara hadn’t planned on attending but her co-worker Trish insisted.  After everyone left, Jack and Tara stayed on and talked for hours.

While Jack talked, alarms were going off in my head.  He had just come off a lousy long-term relationship and he told me that Tara had too.  I shouldn’t have worried.  Invitations had been made through an unwitting yenta named Trish.  I watched in wonder as their relationship blossomed and they healed each other’s soul.

As you know, I love stories and I can’t pass up this opportunity to tell one.  It’s from Rabbi Harold Kushner’s book When All You Ever Wanted Isn’t Enough:

“We need to belong intimately to a few people who are permanent elements of our lives…with whom we share our whole lives, not just a fraction of our time and ourselves…people [who are there] day after day, people who belong to us, people who will be there for us, people who need us and we need in return.”

He then tells this story:

“I was sitting on a beach one summer day, watching two children, a boy and a girl, playing in the sand.  They were hard at work building an elaborate sand castle by the water’s edge, with gates and towers and moats and internal passages.  Just when they had nearly finished their project, a big wave came along and knocked it down, reducing it to a heap of wet sand.

I expected the children to burst into tears, devastated by what had happened to all their hard work.  But they surprised me.  But they surprised me.  Instead, they ran up the shore away from the water, laughing and holding hands, and sat down to build another castle.

I realized they had taught me an important lesson.  All the things of our lives, all the complicated structures we spend so much time and energy creating. Are built on sand.  Only our relationships to other people endure.  Sooner or later, a wave will come along and knock down what we’ve worked so hard to build up.  When that happens, only the person who has someone’s hand to hold will be able to laugh.”

Holding hands and laughing are both important to a long, happy marriage.

One last thing…I would like to bless you.  You don’t have to close your eyes or anything.”

 

Prayer:

Eternal God,

Bring your healing grace to Jack and Tara.

Drench them with your blessings

So they are soaked to the skin.

Dance between them

So they can feel your presence

And join you in their dance.

Amen

Joe Bulko