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Choose one or two readings, (click on the red links below), perhaps one from the Bible and another one.
Then choose people from family or friends to read them. In the longer readings you may wish to have only part the reading used. There are many other suitable readings from poetry and newspaper cuttings, to the words of pop songs, or words that you write yourselves.
If you want anything special, it can always be fitted in.
You are mine, and I am yours, in love.
I am I, and you are you, in thought.
Independently, we share our lives, together.
Susan Polis Schutz
I am so happy with you.
I can discuss all my thoughts, or
I don't have to say anything
You always understand.
I am so relaxed with you,
I don't need to pretend,
I don't need to look good,
You accept me for what I am.
I am so strong with you,
I depend on you for love,
but I live my own life,
You give me extra confidence to succeed.
Susan Polis Schutz
I will support you in all that you do.
I will share with you in all that you experience
I will be your confident in all that is on your mind
I will help you in all that you need
I will encourage you in all that you try
I will grow with you in all that you achieve
I will console you in all that you find troublesome
I will plan with you in all that you experience
I will be behind you in all that you attempt
I will understand you in all that is in your heart
I will be your friend in all that is in life
I will love you in all that you are.
Susan Polis Schutz
The Fountains mingle with the River
And the Rivers with the Ocean,
The winds of Heaven mix for ever
With a sweet emotion;
Nothing in the world is single;
All things by a law divine
In one spirit meet and mingle,
Why not I with thine?
See the mountains kiss high Heaven
And the waves clasp one another;
No sister-flower would be forgiven
If it disdained its brother.
And the sunlight clasps the earth
And the moonbeams kiss the sea:
What is all this sweet work worth
If thou kiss not me?
How do I love thee? Let me count the ways.
I love thee to the depth and breadth and height
My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight
For the end of Being and Ideal Grace.
I love thee to the level of every day's
Most quiet need, by sun and candlelight.
I love thee freely, as men strive for Right;
I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise,
I love thee with the passion put to use
In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith.
I love thee with a love I seemed to lose
With my lost saints - I love thee with the breath,
Smiles, tears, of all my life! - and, if God choose,
I shall but love thee better after death.
E B Browning
Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove.
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come,
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom:
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.
William Shakespeare
No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; if a clod be washed away by the sea, Europe is the less, as well as if a promontory were, as well as if a manor of thy friends or of thine were. Any man's death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind. And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.
John Donne
In love, the gates of my soul spring open, allowing me to breathe a new air of freedom and forget my own petty self. In love, my whole being steams forth out of the rigid confines of narrowness and self assertion, which make me a prisoner of my own poverty and emptiness.
Karl Rahner
Wherever I am, there's always Pooh,
There's always Pooh and Me.
"Where are you going today?" says Pooh:
"Well that's very odd 'cos I was too.
"Let's go together," says Pooh, says he.
"Let's go together," says Pooh.
"What's twice eleven?" I said to Pooh,
("Twice what?" said Pooh to Me.)
"I think it ought to be twenty-two."
"Just what I think myself." said Pooh.
"It wasn't an easy sum to do,
But that's what it is," said Pooh, said he.
"That's what it is," said Pooh.
"Let's look for dragons," I said to Pooh,
"Yes, let's," said Pooh to Me.
We crossed the river and found a few -
"Yes, those are dragons all right," said Pooh.
"As soon as I saw their beaks I knew.
"That's what they are," said Pooh, said he.
"That's what they are," said Pooh.
"Let's frighten the dragons," I said to Pooh.
"That's right," said Pooh to Me.
"I'm not afraid," I said to Pooh.
And I held his paw and I shouted "Shoo!
Silly old dragons!" and off they flew.
"I wasn't afraid," said Pooh said he,
"I'm never afraid with you."
So wherever I am, there's always Pooh,
There's always Pooh and Me.
"What would I do?" I said to Pooh,
"If it wasn't for you," and Pooh said: "True.
"It isn't much fun for One, but Two
"Can stick together," says Pooh, says he.
"That's how it is," says Pooh.
A.A. Milne
Most of all love must be built on truth, not dreams, the knowledge of what we are, rather than what we think it is the fashion to be. For no pair of lovers was ever built to an identical programme. So beware of the norm, for no-one is normal.
There is only one rule that demands what love should be - the dovetailing of oddities which love welcomes and combines.
All such is right, if love is right, and neither person is used simply as the other's victim, but as one whose needs should also be cherished. Love approved, allows and liberates, and is a warm-blooded acceptance of what one is.
The sum of love is that it should be a meeting place, an interlocking of nerves and senses, a series of constant surprises and renewals of each other's moods, a sharing of the gods of bliss and silence - best of all, a steady building from the inside out, from the cosy centre of love's indulgencies, to extend its regions to admit a larger world where children can live and breathe.
Love must be deeper to adapt to the shifting sands of the world; able to withstand disaffections and occasional betrayals; be sufficiently constant, in the centre of orgy and bedlam, to create its own area of sacred quiet; and also be strong enough to take marriage, its toughest test, and to sink the best of its virtues in it, so that its children may be heirs of its proper kingdom rather than the frail castaways of its self absorption.
Laurie Lee
If I truly love one person,
I love all persons,
I love the world,
I love life.
If I can say to somebody else,
'I love you'
I must be able to say,
I love in you everybody,
I love through you the world.
I love in you also myself.
Erich Fromm
What of marriage, Master?
And the prophet answered saying
You were born together, and together you shall be for evermore.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days
Aye, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness.
And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love:
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shade.
Kahil Gibran
With a great voice the Prophet said:-
When love beckons to you, follow him.
Though his ways are hard and steep.
And when his wings enfold you yield to him,
Though the sword hidden among his pinions may wound you.
And when he speaks to you believe in him,
Though his voice may shatter your dreams as the north wind lays waste the garden.
For even as love crowns you, so shall he crucify you.
even as he is your growth, he is for your pruning.
Even as he ascends to your height and caresses your tenderest branches that quiver in the sun,
So shall he descend to your roots and shake them in their clinging to the earth.
Like sheaves of corn he gathers you unto himself.
He threshes you to make you naked.
He sifts you to free you from your husks.
He grinds you to whiteness.
He kneads you until you are pliant;
And then he assigns you to his sacred fire, that you may become sacred bread for God's sacred feast.
All these things shall love do unto you that you may know the secrets of your heart, and in that knowledge become a fragment of Life's heart.
But if in your fear you would seek only love's peace and love's pleasure,
Then it is better for you that you cover your nakedness and pass out of love's threshing-floor,
Into the seasonless world where you shall laugh, but not all of your laughter, and weep, but not all of your tears.
Love gives naught but itself and takes naught but from itself.
Love possesses not, nor would it be possessed;
For love is sufficient unto love.
When you love, you should not say, "God is in my heart" but rather "I am in the heart of God".
And think not you can direct the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Love has no other desires but to fulfil itself.
But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires:
To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.
To know the pain of too much tenderness.
To be wounded by your own understanding of love;
And to bleed willingly and joyfully.
To wake at dawn with a winged heart and give thanks for another day of loving;
To rest at the noonhour and meditate love's ecstasy;
To return home at eventide with gratitude;
And then to sleep with a prayer for the beloved in your heart and a song of praise upon your lips.
Kahil GibranMarriage is the unity of two divinities that a third might be born on earth. It is the union of two souls in a strong love for the abolishment of separateness. It is that higher unity which fuses the separate unities within the two spirits. It is the golden ring in a chain whose beginning is a glance, and whose ending is Eternity. It is the pure rain that falls from an unblemished sky to fructify and bless the fields of divine nature.
Kahil Gibran
Now what is love? I pray thee, tell.
It is that fountain and that well,
Where pleasure and repentance dwell.
It is perhaps that sauncing bell,
That tolls all into heaven or hell:
And this is love, as I hear tell.
Yet what is love? I pray thee say.
It is a work on holy-day;
It is December matched with May;
When lusty bloods, in fresh array,
Hear ten months after of the play:
And this is love, as I hear say.
Yet what is love? I pray thee say.
It is a sunshine mixed with rain;
It is a toothe-ache, or like pain;
It is a game where none doth gain;
The lass saith no, and would full fain:
And this is love, as I hear say.
Yet what is love? I pray thee say.
It is a yes, it is a nay,
A pretty kind of sporting fray;
It is a thing will soon away;
Then take the vantage while you may:
And this is love, as I hear say.
Yet what is love? I pray thee show.
A thing that creeps, it cannot go;
A prize that passeth to and fro;
A thing for one, a thing for mo;
And he that proved must find it so:
And this is love, sweet friend, I trow.
Sir Walter Raleigh
My true love hath my heart, and I have his,
By just exchange one for another given.
I hold his dear, and mine he cannot miss:
There never was a better bargain driven
My true love hath my heart and I have his.
His heart in me, keeps him and me in one,
My heart in him, his thoughts and senses guides:
He loves my heart, for once it was his own:
I cherish his, because in me it bides.
My true love hath my heart and I have his.
Sir Philip Sidney
Go placidly amid the noise and haste and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons. Speak your truth quietly and clearly; and listen to others, even to the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.
Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.
Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs; for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals; and everywhere life is full of heroism.
Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.
Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.
You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars; you have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.
Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive of Him to be, and whatever your labours and inspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.
With all its sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy.
And a youth said, speak to us of Friendship.
And he answered saying:
Your friend is your needs answered.
He is your field which you sow with love and reap with thanksgiving.
And he is your board and your fireside.
For you come to him with your hunger, and you seek him for peace.
And let your best be for your friend.
If he must know the ebb of your tide, let him know its flood also.
For what is your friend that you should seek him with hours to kill?
Seek him always with hours to live.
For it is his to fill your need, but not your emptiness.
And in the sweetness of friendship let there be laughter, and sharing of pleasures.
For in the dew of little things the heart finds its morning and is refreshed.
Kahil Gibran
From This Day Forward
Sharing and caring
Giving and forgiving
Loving and being loved
Walking hand in hand
Talking heart to heart
Seeing through each others eyes
Laughing together
Weeping together
Praying together
And always trusting
And believing
And thanking God
For each other.
Helen Steiner Rice.
The Earth Man
So simple is the earth we tread
So quick with love and life her frame:
Ten thousand years have dawned and fled,
And still her magic is the same.A little love, a little trust
A soft impulse, a sudden dream-
And life as dry as desert dust
Is fresher than a mountain stream.So simple is the heart of man,
So ready for new hope and joy;
Ten thousand years since it began
Have left it younger than a boy.
Stopford Augustus Brooke.
I love You,
Not only for what you are,
But for what I am
When I am with you.I love you,
Not only for what
You have made of yourself,
But for what you are making of me.
I love you,
For the part of me
That you bring out.
I love you
For putting your hand
Into my heaped up heart,
and passing over
All the foolish, weak things
That you can't help
Dimly seeing there;
And for drawing out Into the light
All the beautiful belongings
That no-one else had looked
Quite far enough to find.
I love you because you are
helping me to make of the lumber of my life
Not a tavern, but a temple;
Out of works of my everyday
Not a reproach, but a song.
I love you,
Because you have done
More than any creed
Could have done
To make me good,
and more than any fate
Could have done
To make me happy.
You have done it,
Without a touch,
Without a word,
Without a sign,
You have done,
By being yourself.
Perhaps that is what
Being a friend (and lover) means
After all.
Rod McKewan
Anniversary
Love, like friendship
Must be about something
Besides itself.
I love you, not for the sake of loving,
Nor for the sake of being loved,
But for the sake of the truths we share,
The joy of walking on the same secret road.
I love you, not out of my need for love,
But because of our common vision.
Our travels on the same quest.
We are collaborators, companions, allies,
Face to face, and side by side.
I love you, not because love has survival value,
But because you are helping give value to survival.
I love you because you stand for yourself
And I for myself
And we are the sovereign princes of independent states,
On neutral ground,
Free of context and naked of surroundings.
No shadow of necessity, no burdensome duty
Oversees our love, nor constraint without reason.
We are free and equal as we had met an hour ago,
While the affection and tenderness of years
Enfolds us.
I love you, because in making this journey with you,
I have seen you a thousand times,
In fear, in anger, in sickness and in tears,
And still you ring true.
I love you, and you love me,
Because we bring out of each others depths
All that is best, and wisest, and funniest,
And most exquisite.
Among all the spirits that roam our planet
We have found each other,
And we are lucky beyond measure and description
To be in such company.
Susan De Vore
Imagine there's no heaven,
It's easy if you try;
No hell below us,
Above us only sky.
Imagine all the people
Living for today.
Imagine there's no countries -
It isn't hard to do;
Nothing to kill or die for,
And no religion too.
Imagine all the people
Living life in peace.You may say I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one;
I hope some day you'll join us,
And the world will be one.
Imagine no possessions -
I wonder if you can;
No need for greed or hunger,
A brotherhood of man.
Imagine all the people
Sharing all the world.
You may say I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one;
I hope some day you'll join us
And the world will live as one.
John Lennon
Some say love it is a river that drowns the tender reeds,
Some say love it is a razor that leaves your soul to bleed,
Some say love it is a hunger, an endless aching need.
I say love it is a flower and you its only seed.
It's the heart afraid of breaking that never learns to dance,
It's the dream afraid of waking that never takes the chance,
It's the one who won't be taken who cannot seem to give,
And the soul afraid of dying that never learns to live.
When the night has been too lonely and the road has been too long
And you think that love is only for the lucky and the strong,
Just remember in the Winter, far beneath the bitter snow
Lies the seed that with the sun's love in the Spring becomes the Rose.
A good marriage must be created.
In the marriage, the little things are the big things...
It is never being too old to hold hands.
It is remembering to say ‘ I love you’ at least once each day.
It is never going to sleep angry.
It is having a mutual sense of values and common objectives.
It is standing together and facing the world.
It is forming a circle of love that gathers in the whole family.
It is speaking words of appreciation and demonstrating gratitude in thoughtful ways.
It is having the capacity to forgive and forget.
It is giving each other an atmosphere in which each can grow.
It is a common search for the good and the beautiful.
It is not only marrying the right person,
It is being the right partner.
Marriage can be a wonderful experience,
Full of romantic nights and loving days.
But no matter how much in love you are
There will be times when that love is put to the test.
These are the learning times,
Learning to be patient with one another,
Learning to listen to one another,
Learning to be tolerant of one another,
And learning to share one another’s hopes and fears.
for learning to grow together
Will make the bond between you that much stronger,
And although you are on this your wedding day very much in love,
As the coming days pass by,
And the weeks turn to months,
And the months into years,
You will see with each passing day
Just how much deeper your love will grow.
You're two very special people,
sharing an extra special love,
And you are being sent
a wished for happiness beyond compare.
Carmen
Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, p. 281
Dr Iannis, is talking to his daughter, Pelagia, who is betrothed to Mandras, but falling in love with Captain Corelli.
And another thing. Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion... That is just being ‘in love’, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident. Your mother and I had it, we had roots that grew towards each other underground, and when all the pretty blossom had fallen from our branches we found that we were one tree and not two.
Louis de Bernieres