The Day that I Preached at the Wedding of Two Friends

In January 2004, Stonehill College Chapel Choir embarked on its first European singing tour to Rome, Italy. Throughout the tour, we experienced the ubiquitous displays of this ancient metropolis that arouses all of the senses and stirs the imagination. During a visit to Nicola Salvi’s wondrous creation the Trevi Fountain, I stood near a senior on the tour and remarked on the historical romance of this extraordinary combination of art and aqueduct. We both became aware of several young couples star gaze into each other’s eyes as they sat on the wall in front of this most theatrical masterpiece. The senior, contemplating what the future held in store for her, as all seniors do, mused as we stood and gazed at the various Tritons, “This is where I want my future husband to propose to me.” (I will give you three guesses on the identity of that senior, who I will call, for the sake of this reflection, Tiara.)
Deemed a complete success, the Chapel Choir once again embarked on a second singing tour of Italy in January 2008. By this time, Tiara, now in love with one of those salt-of-the-earth guys who any woman would be privileged and fortunate to claim as ‘the one’, traveled once again with the singing tour as a chapel choir alum, and accompanied by salt-of-the-earth guy, who turned out, as it happens, to be quite a decent tenor. In a conversation prior to the tour, Tiara pondered the possibility of a marriage proposal. “I wonder if it will happen in Italy.” Remembering her remark at the Trevi Fountain several years earlier, I wondered the same thing and became caught up in the great theater that this possibility would create on our tour. (I am, after all, a woman and not made of stone.) After being reassured in a very hush-hush conversation at Christmas time with Salt-of-the-Earth Guy, I knew that the blessed moment would indeed take place on our singing tour in January.
Salt-of-the-Earth-Guy, however, did not reveal the day, time or place that the proposal would occur. Despite this small detail, I shared the exciting news with some members of the tour, and so from the beginning of our excursion, we lived, to coin a phrase, on pins and needles, waiting with bated breath for what seemed to be more eternal than the eternal city.
We contemplated marriage as we toured the Vatican museums and Michaelangelo’s magnanimous art in the Sistine Chapel. We contemplated marriage while studying the incredible beauty of the Pieta and looking intently at Pope John’s immortal remains in St. Peter’s Basilica. We contemplated marriage in the Piazza Navona eating gelato, Tiara’s favorite food, and we continued to contemplate marriage at the wall of the Trevi Fountain (I actually prayed at the feet of Neptune for this), and we contemplated marriage while gazing up at the oculus in the Pantheon. Surely it would here! What opulent drama – a proposal of marriage surrounded by the tomb of the artist Raphael and several kings! And just like Yukon Cornelius in Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer as he continued his quest for gold in the frozen North, we got nothin’. We wondered if everything was alright with Tiara and Salt-of-the-Earth Guy, but I managed to reassure everyone that Salt-of-the-Earth Guy knew what he was about and to expect the unexpected at any time. Stay alert, be watchful, pay attention, I told them. Good generals plan strategies and secret them away until the moment of attack. Clever bridegrooms are no different. I promptly forgot my words in Assisi, the home of several saints that include St. Francis and St. Clare.
Assisi looks very much like a tiny medieval town that time forgot. The narrow lanes, massive gates, Etruscan stone buildings, churches and olive groves set high on a hill capture the imagination, like something out of an Umbrian story land village in a Tommy DePaolo children’s book. Assisi claims Italy’s patron saint, Francis, as its own. Called the Little Poor One because he lived and preached a life of simplicity and poverty, the spirit of Francis permeates Assisi, in the lifestyle of the people who live there, and in the shops of the village and the homes that line the town’s winding roads and lanes. Along with Francis, the town also lays claim to Clare, the founder of the Poor Clares, who followed Frances and began an order of women who espoused the life that Francis led.
After a tour of the Basilica of St. Francis, the choir sang for Mass in one of the small chapels and then went on to visit the Basilica Santa Chiara, which houses St. Clare’s artifacts and the famed Cross of San Damiano. The Basilica of Santa Chiara is fronted by a terrace-like piazza with views over which overlooks a stunning vista of village and valley. The beauty of both the interior and exterior of this Gothic church can literally take your breath away. I suggested to my husband that we visit a small gift shop across the piazza and purchase a Christmas ornament so that we could remember this timeless place of gentle spirituality and peace. A marriage proposal was the last thing on my mind. We could not have been in that little shop for more than five minutes and just paying for our little purchase when a student came to find us and said, “Quick! Come out now! It’s happening now, right now!” We rushed out of the shop to see Salt-of-the-Earth Guy on one knee, proposing marriage to his Tiara at the edge of the terrace, while the rest of the choir gathered to witness the blessed event. That settles it; when you’re looking left, the oncoming train is approaching from the right. Keep your eyes on the road; you never know what's coming down the pike. (Salt of the Earth Guy told me later that he really did look for me before deciding to pop the question, but when I was nowhere to be found, he decided to move forward - thanks be to God.)
And here we are.
When Jess and Paul asked me to offer this reflection, my musings produced several truisms and I offer them today as food for thought for the next 50 years, because this wedding comes with a lifetime guarantee.
Relationships,like recipes, contain principle ingredients that everything else builds upon.
Essential to life and good health, salt is critical to metabolism. It may also be used to cleanse wounds, banish a sore throat in a pinch (remember those famous salt water gargles your mother used when you were la sick little kid? Take that, H1N1.), and keeps us afloat when we swim in the ocean. Salt seasons food and has the potential to make ordinary fruit and vegetables (like tomatoes and popcorn) into gastronomical fare. In a word, salt changes things.
Today, Jesus tells us, his disciples, that we are the salt of the earth. What does that mean for us here today, celebrating a wedding? Just this: that marriage, when lived within a cooperative spirit with the grace of God, changes us. Jess and Paul, with your consent to love, honor and commit to life with each other throughout good times, bad times, sickness and health, you open yourselves to be changed by something bigger than yourselves – to see things in a different way, to live your lives within grace as it constantly unfolds within your daily living. This change goes to the heart of how you'll see yourselves, not only today, but throughout the years, until one day, you'll realize that you've become the other, while retaining those wonderful characteristics that made you fall in love with each other in the first place. As you become salt for each other, your relationship becomes stronger, more seasoned, healthy, vibrant and becomes a vital sign of grace for all of us, and for everyone who will encounter you over the years. Like salt, you have the power to effect all who will come to know you because you have allowed yourselves to be transformed by grace. That's what Jesus meant when he described his followers as the salt of the earth. Sacraments, like salt, change us. Jess and Paul, this life-giving grace that you celebrate today through the gracious love of God will cleanse and heal you when you hurt, keep you afloat when you feel that you may be sinking with the ship, carry you in the joys and sorrows ahead of you, and act as the primary building block of your relationship for you and for your children and your children's children.
The verb 'to be' pretty much sums up Christian marriage.
In the opening song of this liturgy, we sang about the key ingredients necessary for any successful relationship, particularly between a man and woman who fall in love and dare to risk their hearts in this all- encompassing lifetime work of marriage. In his beloved and well -known prayer, St. Francis of Assisi doesn't ask God for peace, or faith, or pardon or understanding. Francis prays to be a channel of peace, a conduit of the grace of God. Francis asks God to grant him the simple faith necessary to be the hope in the midst of someone's despair, like when the bills seems to add up faster than the paychecks and the boiler lets go unexpectedly. Francis doesn't ask to be understood; rather, he knows that we require the grace of God to be consolation during the times when an aging parent seems to be getting far more attention than your wife, or that vacation that you were planning needs to take a back seat because your husband came down with the flu just when you were about to pick up your bags and head out the door. Francis doesn't ask God for love. Instead, Francis prays to be the ardor in the face of someone's rejection, like the job promotion that you were counting on to help pay for the new addition on the house that went instead to the boss's niece. Grant that I may be, Lord, the joy in the midst of someone's sorrow, like when you gain twenty five pounds instead of losing them. Francis petitions God to allow him to be the light for someone living in the darkness of grief when a loved one dies, or when kids break your heart over one thing or another. Francis knew that the greatest dramas are rarely found on stage or screen but discovered in the ordinary events of everyday life. Francis knew that we need the grace of God to become the compassion and love that sustains and nurtures us through the living and the dying and the rising again, Faith, hope and love, and the greatest of these is indeed love. To be the love you've promised today, Jess and Paul, is to be that joy and compassion for each other, a light that shines before others, as Jesus indicates today in Matthew's gospel, so that we, the people in this church today who love you, can always see your light, so that it can shine for us, too, in our all of our relationships, as we strive to live holy lives, the call of all Christians. And what better way than to partner with that person who makes you laugh, holds you when you weep, gives you hope when you feel there's no hope left in the world, and understands you better than you know yourself. Francis said, “Preach the gospel; when necessary, use words.” He got it right. And Paul, you got it right, proposing in Assisi. And Jess got it right when she gave up her tiara and her dream of a marriage proposal at the foot of a glorious fountain and told Salt of the Earth guy that she embraced his decision to ask for her hand on the Piazza Chiara, not the Piazza Tiara. Wise people know that the unexpected turns in the road often lead to the most beautiful views. I think that you, my dear bride and groom, will be salt and light for us all for many years to come. God bless you both.

Voguish

Recently, my daughter came home on a break from college. After a Saturday morning breakfast chat about her friends, her work, her search for apartments for next year and her most recent romantic interests, she stood to go upstairs to shower. Before she left the room, she kissed me on the cheek, pulled the latest copy of Vogue out of her overnight bag and plopped it on the kitchen table. “By the way, I bought this for you. Fun stuff. “
After I poured myself a third cup of coffee, I mustered the courage to look at the star-studded cover of sleek, label-gad women walking toward the wind-machined lens. My daughter and I used to pour through the pages and muse over the lifestyle of the people who seem to very casually wear the unwearable and took great pleasure in perusing Vogue together. When she went to college, I lost my Saturday morning fashion rag buddy. The pages of the magazine taunted me as I mused about my sudden discomfort with the images that stared up at me from their glossy frames. I felt as though I had stepped into a minefield and suddenly wondered why in the world I used to think that this was fun.What was going on here?
The word 'pragmatic' rarely enters fashion vocab. If you love it and you feel good in it, you buy and wear it, regardless of pain or practicality. I admit that despite budget restrictions, I own a good number of stiletos and suits and would never think of going to the grocery store without earrings and lipstick, at the very least. Every day presents a change of purse to match a particular outfit, and sometimes the outfit may be selected because of the choice of a favorite bag or shoes (I confess that I still change my purse if I think that the color clashes with my outfit). I even admit that I once refused to come out of the house to say hello to an old friend who stopped by to introduce me to his new wife because I didn't have my 'face' on. (He recently admitted to me through Facebook that he thought that I was mad at him these many years because of that incident. Pow, that hurt.) Okay, I admit it: I have allowed the stylediva within me to become the power magnate. Fashion rules. A thousand lashes and thirty days without matching bags and shoes for me. However, my recent practice of SAAC (Style At Any Cost)leans more toward supportive walking shoes and a giant satchel that holds my laptop, my brown bag lunch and a tote umbrella, just in case in rains. The brick walk that leads from the parking lot to my office kills nearly every stileto I own; I have befriended the cobbler and take credit for putting his daughter through her first year of college. Vogue smogue. These days, my outfits tend to revolve around a growing collection of Danskos. So sue me. I don't like wet and pinchy feet and can no longer go a full day inside open-toed four-inchers that threaten to land me on my yasch. I used to buy clutches based on their level of color, style and cuteness. Now I look for bags that hold my two-inch heels when I change them for a couple of hours at a meeting. My book-sized purses have been replaced by John Wayne-sized satchels that accommodate the daily bread of blackberry,notebook and arugula with date bagels. Take that, baguette queens.
I nudged the suspect copy of Vogue with the base of my thumb so that the cover was now hidden behind my laptop. I suddenly wondered if I had evolved past brand names and fashion interests. Where did the love go? As I pondered the possibility that age might be a contributing factor, I considered the fifty-something women who still purchased high heels and carry the letter C on on more bags and wallets than New York cabs. These power queens still pull off The Look, an air of confidence and comfort as they stride down corridors in their high heels, balance home and career, labels and love, breezing between board meetings, brooms and Barney's. However, as I perused the pages (yes, of course I gave in) filled with Gucci and Channel, Givenchy and Dior, adorned by anorexic nymphs and sunglassed men clad in underwear or nothing at all, I found myself searching for anyone over the age of twenty-something. The flawless, youthful faces with no wrinkles advertised the miracle of regenerating cell magic with the newest brand of cream for aging skin with air brush wonder. Are you kidding me? Every page taunted me with nymphettes who existed on subsequent meals of lettuce leaves and flavored water, baring limbs longer than Gumbi and evoked the possibility of adventure, sexuality and arrogant carelessness. I couldn't seem to find anyone who aged within these hallowed pages (of course I read it from cover to cover). My daughter intended her gift as a source of enjoyment. Instead, the episode propelled me into a Vogue-funk and sent me running to my closet-and-a-half to consider when My Look had decided to take a trip south for the winter.
Hope arrives through the most unexpected encounters. I decided to dress comfortably that Sunday morning, anticipating my usual 14-hour Sunday and donned a soft gray skirt, red Dansko's and a red and pink argyle layered sweater with white collar and cuffs. As a compromise for my scaled-down non-look, I threw on a pearl necklage and earrings with my giant Swalarki pink-jeweled ring that I picked up at a 75% off sale in a Denver hotel on a lay-over several years ago. As I passed a mirror for a quick check, I told myself to face it: my cosmo girl days were long gone. My non-look was a far cry from outfits past, when my students would watch for my feet under the piano to see what cute stiletto I would wear and visitors drooled over my lastest scarf or newest jacket. I had decamped the world of sheek and settled for comfort. Where is Tim Gunn with a shot of fashion conscience when you need him.
Upon arriving to work, I encountered a staff member who would preside aand preach at worship that morning. He introduced me to his friend, who I immediately dubbed Friendly Guy, probably in his mid-fifties. You just liked him at first blush.
“Wow, you've really got it going on!” he exclaimed, checking me out from head to toe. “You must watch What Not To Wear! You're so coordinated. I love what you're wearing!”
For a moment I considered telling Friendly Guy that I felt like the last rose of summer when it dawned on my that Vogue wasn't the problem. I had become my own worst version of The Enemy. In that moment, I knew that I had allowed a contemporary marketing icon to dictate how I felt about myself based on what I wore on my back and on my feet. I decided right then and there that Friendly Guy had offered me an opportunity to reboot from my Voguefunk and return to the land of the resurrected, so I volleyed back, “Well, thanks, and yes, I do watch What Not To Wear. I love that show! I actually have a reputation on this campus as the Coordination Queen. My students tell me all the time.”
“I knew it,” Friendly Guy said, perceiving my interest in the fashion world. “Can you believe the women on that show and what they wear? What in the world are they thinking? They don't even wear the right bras or underwear with their clothes. It always fascinates me to think that they walk on the streets either oblivious to how they look or just uncaring about their appearance.”
Our family motto is Toutedroit (Straightforward). I suddenly became intensely interested in Friendly Guy's identity, so I asked straightfowardly asked him, “Who are you? Do you work in fashion?” “ Oh no,” he laughed. “I'm a priest.”
Shucks, folks. I'm speechless.
Was Friendly Guy an anomaly or is there really a little Tim Gunn in even men of the cloth? Are people secretly reading Vogue under the covers at night and watching Project Runway instead of Meet the Press? Did my Friendly Guy just pull back the curtain on the newest show in town?
And what all this say about those of us who might still want to always look our best but willing to compromise the height of our heels or the length of our skirts for a more accomodating style with a little comfort? And in what rule book does it state that voguish style equates to what the fashionistas dictate? It seems to me that whatever I wear, my clothes should suggest who I am – a woman who may have gained a little wisdom (and weight) over some well-heeled walkway. My mileage tells me that some styles should never be worn by people over forty and body parts serve us best if they serve in the style that God fashioned them. I may be preaching to the choir but I'll say this loudly and proudly, by gum. Vogue smogue. Beauty comes in many sizes, shapes and styles. It's up to us to find our style and work it. Or, in Gunn-tongue, make it work.
I still read Vogue on Saturday mornings. I still love fashion and I still want to own a pair of Christian Loubatin open-toed pumps someday. But now I just look in the mirror and love myself back. I am, after all, me.

Market Place Musings

After reading Juliet Schor and Tom Beaudoin on religion and consumption, I began to reflect on Beaudoin’s position regarding the “unique dynamic” of “branding” as a verb, capable of shaping “a consistent and coherent identity” within a specific community, namely, that of young adults within a college setting. When considering this particular pericope, I decided to take several intentional walks at two private Catholic colleges, where I respectively work and study, to specifically pay attention to what students wear, how they carry themselves, and how they interface with one another in coffee shops, libraries, classroom areas, and gyms. The practice of Christian presence as hospitality and availability always plays out in a very deliberate way within my own practice of ministry, and that includes walking intentionally on both college campuses. However, this exercise became a more focused activity, one I attempted to perform without moral certitude or agenda, keeping an open eye and mind to the physicality and interaction of students on both campuses, with an ear to Schor and Beaudoin as I walked and observed. I offer several equations as a result of this exercise:

Abercrombie and Fitch + Coach + Nike = Status, Power
Jimmy Choo + Calvin Klein + Victoria Secret = Envy, Desire
Status + Power + Envy + Desire = Acceptance and Confidence
Status + Power +Envy +Desire+Acceptance +Confidence = The Look

In these two private college settings, I found that The Look contains not only a distinguishable physical appearance in students who espouse brand economy practices, but also carries with it an aura of poise which manifests itself as an air of superciliousness, a “brand” of arrogance worn as surely as any logo apparel. The Look communicates how one wishes to be seen by peers, issuing physical appearance as one's own personal traits (cool, strong, intelligent, etc.) These young power magnates appear to set the bar for other college students who may not possess the monetary resources or the physical norms that The Look requires, creating an abyss between those who can and those who cannot. In my opinion, “branding”, when lived out as a verb, not only marks those who adopt marketplace ideologies, and adapt their identities so that they can really experience the pleasure that their own imaginations conjure, but also “brands” those it leaves in the wake of its effects. The old adage, ‘marked for life’ comes to mind when recalling those students who sit with me because they’ve been made to feel different and struggle with their own self-image. Even good ministry sometimes falls short in its attempt to call to mind that every individual is created in the image and likeness of God when a human being feels crushed by the impact of marketplace ‘branding’. The haunts who embody those everyday elements that college students encounter play themselves out through episodes of bulimia, cutting, excess drinking, drugs abuse, gossip, co-dependant relationships, and other forms of depression. I would add to Schor’s claim that materialism creates neurosis and risky behavior those who feel that they cannot measure up to America’s marketplace dictatorship, driving them into a state of despair. “Branding” is alive and well and is often before me as students live their own Calvary, attempting to reclaim their own truths from the bill of goods that marketplace icons try to sell them.
After my two intentional walks, I mused that The Look dominates my two colleges. What does this say about us as institutions? Who are the targets of our market? Who do we invite and accept into our institutions? Schor claims that young people become ‘branded’ at a tender age, through a composite of influences created by the culture of our time. The two aforesaid institutions gean much their student constituency from a professional clientele of parents and moguls who provide a kind of modeling of what power, influence and prestige appear to look like. Marketplace contouring plays out in the professional world through brand suites and ties with clout, Blahnik power, and other eponymous attire which has the potential to inform, form and transform accountants into power-broker look-alikes, lawyers into economist wanna-be’s, business owners to entrepreneur-hopefuls. Do our students model what they witness in their parents? Or, do they adopt The Look, if they’re able, when they arrive on campus, and if so, at what point are they ‘branded’?
While guilty of parental transgressions from time to time, (I love really great showes and so does my daughter!), I will not purchase brand names for their own sake, but will find companies like Kenneth Coe, which advocates awareness through AWEARNESS1. I’ve worn my own sons out with my sermons on profit-at-any-cost companies (a perfect example of Beaudoin’s warning about moralizing!), but happily report that my lectures must have taken at least partial effect. All three of my kids will think twice before purchasing a piece of clothing from companies whose market practices are in question. I continue to watch for ' branding' signs among the young adults with whom I'm privileged to share a relationship and continue to consider the question, “To whom do we belong: to God, or to the market gods?” Indeed, to whom do any of us belong and how will we live that conviction out in the future?

French Reflections

In January 2010, the Stonehill College Chapel Choir set out on its fourth European tour, heading for the first time to France. In addition to offering concerts in the Cathedral of Notre Dame and L'Eglise de la Madeleine in Paris, the choir traveled to visit Notre Dame du Chartres, and finally to Le Mans, the home of Blessed Basil Moreau, founder of the Congregation of Holy Cross. Through the local Holy Cross community in Le Mans, the choir visited Notre Dame du Sainte Croix, the church built by Fr. Moreau in the 19th century, and continued on to visit and sing for the elderly Marianite who inhabit at The Solitude, a reserve that includes the archives from the Congregation's origins. Our singing tour ended with a vigil Mass at the Cathedral of St. Julien in the old city of Le Mans.

Forty singers, including five Stonehill choir alum, journeyed together to witness what history set before us. We pondered human suffering and endurance in the Conciergerie, extravagant glory at Versailles, creative genius at the Louvre, and the glory of God as we toured and sang in the glorious French cathedrals. As I visited with my students on our bus rides and our walks up and down the streets of France, I asked what touched them the most. Some were clearly moved by the music that we sang as their voices resounded and echoed back to them in reverberated hymns of praise. Others raised questions on political and economic history and their effects on a country that clearly surpasses our own in matters of national health care, affordable higher education and an enviable sprit de corps of the people of France. As the students toured the cathedrals, several mused on mysteries revealed throughout the magnanimous period of human history that produced such an implausible witness of faith in the living God, and what these miracles of stone and mortar teach us about ourselves. More than a few students returned to the Louvre in their free time, to continue to explore the countless works of genius throughout the ages and offered a spontaneous concert on the steps of the museum for other tourists.

I discovered a leitmotif of profound wonder and joy within all of these conversations, which I believe can only be accessed through lived experience. I may tell my students that their voices will resonate in a vast cathedral, but unless they draw breath as they prepare to sing, create sound and wait for the reverberation to cease before they sing another phrase while sensing the music of the ages that resonate for centuries before them, their epiphany will not occur. These young scholars study the history, literature, politics and artistic ventures of particular periods of history, reflecting and writing about them as they search for truth and meaning. However, as my choir students placed their hands on the very stones that the laborers of Chartres hauled by hand from a quarry five miles away, or gazed upon the upward thrust of flying buttresses and exquisite stained glass at Notre Dame in Paris, classroom legends became a living testament of real people who birthed these wondrous glories of mortar and glass through human endurance and unparalleled faith. As we encourage students to evoke their senses through learning opportunities such as a choir tour, we offer them new possibility, to discover, learn and grow into the holy human beings that God has in mind for us all.

I considered this particularly as we visited Le Mans and the site of Blessed Basil Moreau, who believed that “the mind must not be cultivated at the expense of the heart.” As my students sang an Ave Maria in Notre Dame du Sainte Croix, prayed at the tomb of Fr. Moreau and toured the church where our Stonehill roots found their origin, one student reflected, “If it hadn't been for all of this, we would not be here. We would not have met.” Without the experience of standing in that church, I very much doubt that Fr. Moreau would be as real as he will be forever more in the heart of that student. The exuberance of the elderly Marianite sisters during our afternoon concert enkindled the embers of friendship that transcended language as religious women and Stonehill students joined in music making and elated encounter, bringing alive the Holy Cross charisms of hospitality and community. Borders disappeared as we sang the liturgy at Cathedral of St. Julien, collaborating with the cathedral musicians in praise of our God, ignoring Arctic temperatures as hearts were warmed within the spirit of our shared faith. Singing for the hundreds of tourists who heard us at Cathedral of Notre Dame, L'Eglise de la Madeleine and at Cathedral of St. Julien stirred in all students a sense of Christian mission, igniting a spirit of faith which inspires and animates zeal and identifies us as the people of God.

For some of our students, choir tours will be their only experience of travel across the ocean during their academic careers, and will embark on a more profound journey of study because of their travel experiences. Others will find the inspiration and courage to step outside their borders and study abroad, exploring the world more deeply, traveling widely while they pursue academic discipline in a foreign country. Whatever the case may be, Stonehill choir tours offers our students an opportunity to engage spiritually, intellectually and bodily with the world, giving witness to Fr. Moreau’s vision of an education that fosters the widening of minds and the deepening of hearts.