Don't pretend religion

I had a couple awhile back who confided to me how strong their religious upbringing had been, and how these strongly held beliefs were still alive and well with the bride's mother and with both the groom's parents.

Neither of these two currently practice the faith of their upbringing, but they wished to both respect and honor their families. This would be best done by their being authentically themselves, rather than all of us approximating a "church" wedding, with customs that might be familiar or comfortable for the elders, but hypocritical for the couple.

This brings me to the love story, the signature of my work as a wedding celebrant. I see it as the context of the ceremony, but not the centerpiece. The centerpiece is the vows. Religion has become a taboo divisive subject in our country over the past two decades and when a generation today under forty is not willing to become hypocrites on one of the most important days of their lives, they don't have to turn to the bland or to the mock religious to hide who they are. A love story that opens up the heart of how and why this commitment came to be reveals a universal identity. No one of us has the same details, but almost every one of us has a story.

All religions lead us back to love. We are hungry for the real thing and it becomes a spiritual lift to remind ourselves that two people can be so selfless as to take each other on for the long haul. If that's not what God wants of us, I don't know what else there is.