For Casey and André
Dearest family members and friends of Casey and André,
Welcome to this celebration of love and commitment. With
your permission, I would like to introduce myself. First and foremost, I must
say I am not a judge, a priest, a pastor, a rabbi, a Muslim officer, or any
other type of powerful person in the legal or spiritual spheres. I am here to
conduct the wedding of Casey Snook and André Krüger because of the special
bonds of love and friendship that have been blossomed since the day I received
a visit from a young and enthusiastic engineering student at my office at the
University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.
It was almost exactly eight years
ago, then, when Casey wanted permission to enroll in my Portuguese 101 class.
It was by chance that we met, really, since all she needed was another three
credits to fulfill her Honors Program requisite. Lucky me! I got a lot more
than a new student: a new wonderful friend, one of those people we can easily
call kin-souls.
What kind of friend, though? Well,
it’s a long story, which I promise to cut short. Right away, that morning
in my office, I realized she was not an average student
or an average person. She displayed a remarkable zest for learning. She
was lively and articulate. She was determined and convincing. Even though she
had presented herself as an engineering major, she soon showed me that her ease with numbers and hard science
was just one among her many talents. In the
following weeks I learned that she was taking intermediate Arabic, that she
knew some Italian and some Spanish from family interactions and travel
experiences, that she played various musical instruments, that she sang, danced
and performed in public as part of a course on old Asian music and another on
African traditions. Among several other ways of being an active student on
campus and off campus, Casey was moved by very different impulses to pursue two
of her passions: in Ghana, she would improve her musical skills, and, in Panama, she would work on
different means to help the poor in desperate need for running and drinking
water.
As that Fall semester unfolded
in 2014, we had other several conversations in my office. I realized, then,
that she had a passion for helping solve some of the planet’s gravest concerns.
That desire fomented her interest in travelling, which, in turn, fed her craving for learning foreign languages and cultures. We
did have much in common, including our appreciation for music and travel, and
the passionate attachment to our families and friends. Casey definitely had
other traits that I greatly admired, like courage and determination. They
were also further evident as I read her entertaining and elucidating blog
entries that discuss a plethora of cultural adventures and geophysical
discoveries around the globe. As the following school
semesters passed, I could attend several of her dance and music performances. I
saw those traits, too, as she interacted with her peers, instructors and
family, whom my wife and I eventually had the honor of meeting and becoming
friends with.
Then there was the day I met André.
What a fine young man, I immediately I sensed that Casey had scored highly
again in life. There were many opportunities for me to learn about his
intelligence, flexibility, kindness, patience – an amazingly loving
personality. For that realization, I had the honor of spending time with him
not only in New England, back in the United States, but also in Berlin, in his
own country, where he made sure we would enjoy fantastic nights at venues
offering jazz gigs. I was also impressed by the large number and endearing
character of the Facebook messages he received when he finished up his
internship in the Boston area. Best of all was to see how André treated Casey
on a day-to-day basis. On so many of such occasions, I simply wished I was just
like him.
In fact, the day-to-day deeds
matter a whole lot, and that’s how I would prefer approaching the feelings and
expectations behind the reason for us to gather at this marvelous place called
Casa Felix: Casey and André’s wedding. This is the second time in my life when
I have the delight and distinction of officiating a ceremony in which two
beings join hands and hearts for a life together. I am deeply grateful to you
two, Casey and André, for the joy your invitation gave me, and also for the
trust in my capacity to add a little color and flavor to this exuberant
festivity. But because I am a man with a penchant for literature, I cannot put
aside the ending of the second act of Our Town, a 1938 theatrical play by
the North American author Thornton Wilder. The story takes place in Grover’s
Corners, a fictional small town in New Hampshire, not far at all from Casey’s
birthplace. I’m sure some of you have read it. It is a classic piece of modern
drama that was heavily influenced by existentialism.
You know, those darn
existentialists! They are profound and precise in their thinking, but they can
be too boringly and painfully pessimistic sometimes, a sort of pessimism that
we can use for humor, of course. Breaking with realism, it is the Stage Manager
who walks out of his role and plays the part of the clergyman in the wedding of
Emily and George. Looking aside, the clergyman certainly shocks the bride and
groom, plus the rest of his audience: “I've married over two hundred
couples in my day. Do I believe in it? I don't know.” He emphasizes
the element of boredom in a long-lasting relationship: “The cottage, the go-cart, the Sunday-afternoon drives in the Ford,
the first rheumatism, the grandchildren, the second
rheumatism, the deathbed, the reading of the will.” Yes, I think it
is appropriate to laugh.
The stage directions explain
that the scene takes a different tone, though, when he looks at the
audience for the first time, with a warm smile that removes any sense
of cynicism from the next line. On marriage, the clergyman adds, “Once in a thousand times it's interesting.”
Wait a minute, this is not necessarily the point of view of the play. It’s that
of just one character, a minister in disguise. If that character’s words are
true, which I think are not, I firmly believe that, in light of what I said
about Casey and André, these two extraordinary human beings are genuinely
equipped and prepared to be that one couple in a thousand. To be fair to
Thornton Wilder, we must remember that he ends the first act of that famous
drama three years after the start of the action. The Stage Manager is busy at
this time saying that a lot can happen in a thousand days. “Yes,
the mountain got bit away a few fractions of an inch; millions of gallons
of water went by the mill; and here and there a new home was set up under
a roof,” he conjures. “Nature's been pushing and contriving in other ways, too:
a number of young people fell in love and got married.” Then he
concludes, “Almost everybody in the world gets married,
you know what I mean? In our town there aren't hardly any
exceptions. Most everybody in the world climbs into their graves married.”
Maybe this part of the script is
essentially true, but it doesn’t matter. One of these days I will Google that
question and let you know. What I am here to argue about, though, is the beauty
and power of love, the whole reason we have come to Casa Felix.
My studies in philosophy, history
or literature have not confirmed it yet in great details, but we kind of know
that faith in love in a life by two is an old thing. There is also a loud and
attractive cousin of love, that which we call passion. Passion can be a really
loving sister to love, but many times that cousin-sister simply fades away.
Worse than that, if confined in disappointment, passion can hurt and blind us.
In my opinion, there is nothing intrinsically bad about passion, even though it
can push a person very far away from what love is all about: to wish and to
strive for the well-being and happiness of the ones we love.
We do not need existentialism,
however, to realize that life is tough, a world of thick and tricky woods we
have to walk through somehow and, hopefully, enjoy it to the core, at least
from time to time. Different from passion, which, some say, can easily turn
into a torment that may drive us crazy, love often is a comforting grass to sit
on, enjoy and rest, before it empowers us to move forward with our plans and
goals through the woods, as they never cease to surprise us, with bright sunny days
or dark cloudy skies.
As Wilder’s Stage Manager suggests,
love is certainly one of the most widely taken paths through the woods of life.
Those of us who live with our partners know about the sweet and the sour days
of existence. So, what? What kind of bliss would we have here today, under
these amazing clear skies, if it were not for the gloomy cloudy hours? What
matters is the faith we deposit into and extract from the love we feel for our
partners! What counts is the chance to look deep into our loved one’s eyes and
recognize their love while thinking that we live together because that is our
option, our determination to make life better that way, while creating and
discovering moments of pure joy and gratitude for each other. What indeed helps
us is to accept and embrace life as it is, both for how it can be unexpected
and challenging but also generate even more love between us. Love, that way,
may provide us with simple and easy respite or with long-lasting strength and
courage that grow inside without our knowing how or why.
Honestly, all we need in order to
understand and believe those powers of love is to take a look at Casey’s and
André’s shinning eyes. This is enough for all of us physically here, and for
all of those who could not join us today, to garner faith and joy in the
decision they have assumed together. To all of you I ask to pause and think
quietly and exclusively of Casey and André sometime tonight. May we all feel
the tremendous inspiration that they bring us, as they celebrate their union
with us. In our brief spiritual retreat somewhere, may we say a little prayer
for these loving human beings. At this moment, though, if I may, I would
invite you to salute the couple with a very warm round of applause, even before
they exchange their rings and their vows. Of course, we will do that again,
then, after the vows, and then again and again, ad infinitum!
Casa Felix
Olivella, Province of Barcelona, Spain
September 21, 2022
