Wedding Ceremony

Theresa Zingery and David Breeden

May 24, 2009
Mary and Marion Breeden’s home, Broughton, Illinois


Song: Something That We Do

I remember well the day we wed
I can see that picture in my head
I still believe the words we said
Forever will ring true
Love is certain, love is kind
Love is yours and love is mine
But it isnt something that we find
Its something that we do
Its holding tight, lettin go
Its flying high and laying low
Let your strongest feelings show
And your weakness, too
Its a little and a lot to ask
An endless and a welcome task
Love isn’t something that we have
Its something that we do
We help to make each other all that we can be
Though we can find our strength and inspiration independently
The way we work together is what sets our love apart
So closely that you can’t tell where I end and where you start
It gives me heart remembering how
We started with a simple vow
There’s so much to look back on now
Still it feels brand-new
Were on a road that has no end
And each day we begin again
Loves not just something that were in
Its something that we do
We help to make each other all that we can be
Though we can find our strength and inspiration independently
The way we work together is what sets our love apart
So closely that you can’t tell where I end and where you start
Love is wide, love is long Love is deep and love is strong
Love is why I love this song
And I hope you love it too
I remember well the day we wed
I can see that picture in my head
Love isn’t just those words we said
It’s something that we do
There’s no request too big or small
We give ourselves, we give our all
Love isn’t someplace that we fall
Its something that we do

Lyrics by Clint Black and sung by Theresa and David’s friend David Hodge


READINGS

Love is patient and kind; love is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude.
Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. I Corinthians 13:4-8a (New English Bible)


Blessed are you, Holy One of the Earth, who creates the fruit of the vine.
Blessed are you, Holy One of the Universe. You created all things for your Glory.
Blessed are you, Holy One of the World. Through you humankind lives.
Blessed are you, Holy One of the Word. You make man and women in your image, after your likeness, that they might perpetuate life...
Blessed are you, Holy One of All Nature, who makes Zion rejoice with her children...
Blessed are you, Holy One of the Cosmos, who makes the bridegroom and bride to rejoice.
Blessed are you, Holy One of All, who created joy and gladness, bride and bridegroom, mirth and song, pleasure and delight, love, fellowship, peace and friendship...

The Hebrew ‘Seven Blessings”


Among His signs is that He created you from the earth, and you are now human beings dispersed everywhere. Another of His signs is that He created mates of your own kind of yourselves so that you may get peace of mind from them, and has put love and compassion between you. Verily there are signs in this for those who reflect.

The Holy Qurán, 30:21


Relationship is not strangled by claims. Intimacy is tempered by lightness of touch. We have moved through our day like dancers, not needing to touch more than lightly because we were instinctively moving to the same rhythm.

A good relationship has a pattern like a dance and is built on some of the same rules. The partners do not need to hold on tightly, because they move confidently in the same pattern, intricate but gay and swift and free, like a country dance of Mozart's. To touch heavily would be to arrest the pattern and freeze the movement, to check the endlessly changing beauty of its unfolding. There is no place here for the possessive clutch, the clinging arm, the heavy hand; only the barest touch in passing. Now arm in arm, now face to face, now back to back -- it does not matter which. Because they know they are partners moving to the same rhythm, creating a pattern together, and being invisibly nourished by it. The joy of such a pattern is not only the joy of creation or the joy of participation, it is also the joy of living in the moment. Lightness of touch and living in the moment are intertwined. But how does one learn this technique of the dance? Why is it so difficult? What makes us hesitate and stumble? It is fear, I think, that makes one cling nostalgically to the last moment or clutch greedily toward the next. But how to exorcise it? It can only be exorcised by its opposite, love. When the heart is flooded with love, there is no room in it for fear, for doubt, for hesitation. And it is this lack of fear that makes for the dance. When each partner loves completely then he has forgotten to ask himself whether or not he is loved in return; when he only knows that he loves and is moving to its music -- then, and then only, are two people able to dance perfectly in tune to the same rhythm.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

Know thou of a certainty that Love is the secret of God's holy Dispensation, the manifestation of the All-Merciful, the fountain of spiritual outpourings. Love is heaven's kindly light, the Holy Spirit's eternal breath that vivifieth the human soul. Love is the cause of God's revelation unto man, the vital bond inherent, in accordance with the divine creation, in the realities of things. Love is the one means that ensureth true felicity both in this world and the next. Love is the light that guideth in darkness, the living link that uniteth God with man, that assureth the progress of every illumined soul. Love is the most great law that ruleth this mighty and heavenly cycle, the unique power that bindeth together the divers elements of this material world, the supreme magnetic force that directeth the movements of the spheres in the celestial realms. Love revealeth with unfailing and limitless power the mysteries latent in the universe. Love is the spirit of life unto the adorned body of mankind, the establisher of true civilization in this mortal world, and the shedder of imperishable glory upon every high-aiming race and nation.

'Abdu'l-Bahá, Baha’i Faith


Sand ceremony and vows

Today, this relationship is symbolized through the pouring of these two individual containers of sand, one representing Theresa and all that you were, all that you are, and all that you will ever be, and the other representing me, and all that I was and all that I am, and all that I will ever be. As these two containers of sand are poured into the third container, the individual containers of sand will no longer exist, but will be joined together as one. Just as these grains of sand can never be separated and poured again into the individual containers, so will our marriage be.As we say our personal vow to the other we will pour our personal sand into the common vase. After each of us has said our personal vow we join together to say a common vow which expresses the “immutable foundation of a spiritual marital union”:

“We will all, verily, abide by the Will of God."

Prayer of blessing on this union