Those lovely words by Shakespeare reverberated within the walls of my fervent heart as I witnessed Shilpa and Jeremy's marriage ceremony last Friday - by far the most beautifully moving wedding I have ever been a part of (I've never cried so much!).
One specific passage from their ceremony struck me the most. Lara read a passage at the wedding by Anne Morrow Lindberg titled "Gift From the Sea." As alluring as the passage itself was the fact these same words were read by a friend at Lara's parents' wedding. Now here, decades later, stood their sweet daughter reading at her own friend's wedding. This passage I feel is more sincere and true than any other words that have ever been uttered. I have thought along similar lines but never have I seen it written so succinctly. Without further ado, I leave you with this selection. I hope it speaks to you as profoundly as it had to me:
"Gift From the Sea"
When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility. It is even a lie to pretend to. And yet, this is exactly what most of us demand. We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide, and resist in terror its ebb. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity, in freedom. The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation - but in living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now.
