To Give and Give and Give Again

A mediation upon the state of being married

Happy Anniversary to me—yesterday. Twenty-three years ago on a hot August morning, Matt and I stood in front of all our family and friends, or at least a good number of them who so kindly traveled all the way to Oregon to be there, and made all the promises required by the Anglican prayer book. The service lasted an hour and twenty minutes because some of the many hymns we chose had like eight verses and we were unwilling to cut any of them. Plus there was communion. And a sermon. And three lessons and a psalm. And we processed to the back of the church to get the elements and then back to the front so that everyone could see the full effect of my dress a second time. It was pretty great.

One song we picked, the processional as it turned out, has caused me a lot of angst in the intervening years. Here is the organ accompaniment with the words posted if you want to give it a listen—can’t find a singable one, sob:

I have had a lot of quiet gnashing of the teeth over my extremely courageous decision to walk down the aisle to the last verse of this haunting hymn. It starts out so cheerily, like we are all covered in sunshine and butterflies:

Not here for high and holy things
we render thanks to thee,
but for the common things of earth,
the purple pageantry
of dawning and of dying days,
the splendor of the sea,

Plus I adore the word “glistering”

the royal robes of autumn moors,
the golden gates of spring,
the velvet of soft summer nights,
the silver glistering
of all the million million stars,
the silent song they sing,

And it has the vague outline of Psalm 19, which I love so much

of faith and hope and love undimmed,
undying still through death,
the resurrection of the world,
what time there comes the breath
of dawn that rustles through the trees,
and that clear voice that saith:

And the august hour was 10 am, so on the whole it just seemed like the best possible hymn for the moment. My bridesmaids walked down one for each verse

Awake, awake to love and work!
The lark is in the sky,
the fields are wet with diamond dew,
the worlds awake to cry
their blessings on the Lord of life,
as he goes meekly by.

And finally you come to the Jesus part—this would have been a good verse for me to walk in on:

Come, let thy voice be one with theirs,
shout with their shout of praise;
see how the giant sun soars up,
great lord of years and days!
So let the love of Jesus come
and set thy soul ablaze,

But no, this was for me

to give and give, and give again,
what God hath given thee;
to spend thyself nor count the cost;
to serve right gloriously
the God who gave all worlds that are,
and all that are to be.

Because, of course, when you are a bright young thing stuffed into a fluffy dress and heels with your hair pinned up and the most crucial decision you’ve had to make in your life thus far has been ‘what will really make me the happiest at this moment’ the thing that sticks upward in your mind is having your soul set ablaze, not giving and giving and giving again. Spending yourself nor counting the cost sounds gloriously pious in the sky-ous. It is exactly the sort of thing that every Christian is supposed to do. In its generous, but entirely theoretical aspect, it is exactly the sort of blithe and sublime promise one can only discover the implications of at 3 am when a child comes to inform you that he has vomited all over his clean bedding and wants to climb in between you and your caro sposo.

Honestly, I date my workaholism to this choice of nuptial hymnody. For the hymn, of course, functioned like a prayer.