Good afternoon everyone. My name is Darrow Woods. I
serve as the minister at Trinity United Church, where Jacquie and Markus are
both active members. When they asked me to be involved in today’s celebration,
I was quite pleased, and honoured. I know this chapel, and Appleby College mean
a lot to Jacquie and her family. I am grateful to Canon Lennox for his gracious
hospitality, in inviting me to speak the sermon on this occasion.
Markus and Jacquie told me that this service is being
live-streamed, by way of the internet, to viewers in many different places, who
are not able to be with us in person, but who desire to share in the joy of
this day. So I take a moment now to greet the people in the Czech Republic, and
France, and Germany, and Greece, as well as California, Kentucky and
Saskatchewan, who are with us in spirit.
Maybe we can get the people here to say hello. Can I
ask the congregation to say, “Hello Live-streamers!”
Do you think they are answering back, with their own
shouts out? I would like to think so. We can’t hear them, but we can perhaps
feel their love, in the silence.
It actually seems very appropriate that these unseen,
and un-heard friends are connected to us in this way, on this day. Last
evening, Jacquie’s mother, Diane told me that there were many evenings during
their long distance courtship, when Jacquie would be in her room in the family
home here in Oakville, and Markus was in his room in Germany, and they would
both be quietly studying, but they could see each other, and hear each other
flipping pages, and scratching notes on paper, because they were connected by
Skype. Through the wonders of technology, they could use their laptops, their
wireless routers, the internet bandwidth, the phone lines, and probably more
than one satellite or transatlantic cable, to be together, even though they
were thousands of kilometres apart. (Just as we are connected to all those
live-streamers out there!)
I love the idea of Jacquie and Markus being with each
other that way. I wish this had been possible when my wife and I were dating 20
years ago. At that time, we lived in the same province, but about 6 highway
hours apart. She was in a little town called Belmont, near Brandon, while I was
in the Swan River Valley, on the Manitoba-Saskatchewan border. Those references
will make sense to folks from the prairies.
What touched me most deeply about Diane’s description
of Jacquie and Markus was that for most of the time, they would just be
together in silence. There is something beautiful about this. It’s a good sign
for their future that they can be content sitting together in silence. Think of
the older couples you know, who have been married for decades, and do not
always even need to speak. They already know- they know their beloved so deeply
that the words are superfluous. The silence speaks for them. The silence is
laden with love.
I am reading a book called, “In pursuit of silence:
listening for meaning in a world of noise”, by a psychologist named George
Prochnik. Prochnik believes, as many artists, and mystics, poets and lovers
have proclaimed for centuries, that silence is necessary, and sustaining,
nurturing and healing. Silence gives us space to be, to think, to grow, to
love. Neuro-scientists have determined that our brains use moments of silence
to prepare to receive and process new information. An implications of this is
that as our lives are increasingly noisy, it becomes more and more difficult
for us to actually think.
I have a friend who is both an Anglican priest and a
jazz musician, and he says that without silence, there is no music. Silence
makes rhythm possible. He also says this is evident in the story of the
creation of the world. There was nothing, then God spoke, and there was
something. A cosmologist might say there was total stillness, then there was a
Big Bang. Nothing, then something. Silence then a word. In music, it is the
spaces between the notes that make it possible for us to hear a song, rather
than just endure a cacophonous noise.
The scriptures of many religious traditions describe
the presence of God as breath, or spirit. Breath is life. We inhale. We pause.
We exhale. Between the thousands and thousands of inhalations and exhalations
of each day, there is a silent, resting pause. When I teach people to pray, I often
begin by asking them to pay attention to the rhythm of their own breath.
The same rhythm governs the beating of our hearts, and
the pulse of blood moving through our veins. The pause, the silence in between,
makes the rhythm possible, just as breath makes life possible.
When I walked in this beautiful chapel yesterday for
the rehearsal, I remembered how much it reminds me of Hogwarts from the Harry
Potter movies. It was fun to think of walking in today wearing my robe, like
one of the old wizards. The design of this chapel resembles the chapel at
Mepkin Abbey where I like to go on silent retreat. It is a Trappist monastery
in South Carolina, where most of the monks, most of the time, live in
contemplative silence, except when they come to chapel, and sing and speak
their prayers. They sit in choir stalls facing each other, the same set up as
here. The monks believe God is always with them, but it is in the silence we
quiet ourselves enough to listen beneath the clutter of our own lives, to hear
God’s voice, and to know God’s love.
This makes me think of the words of one my favourite
United Church hymns, called “Come and find the quiet centre”. The second verse
says,
Silence
is a friend who claims us,
cools
the heat and slows the pace,
God
it is who speaks and names us,
knows
our being, face to face,
making
space within our thinking,
lifting
shades to show the sun,
raising
courage when we're shrinking,
finding
scope for faith begun.
In just a few moments, a few heartbeats from now, Canon Lennox will lead Jacquie and Markus through their wedding vows. Beneath the ancient words of promising, and joining, and blessing, there will be, for them, and for us, a sacred silence, that God will fill with presence. God is with us, and just as our hearts beat to move blood through our bodies, God’s spirit breathes life, and love into this moment, and all the moments of our lives.
There is a language deeper than words. We heard about
it in the scripture from First Corinthians, that Janet read in English, and
Andrea offered in German. Beneath the tongues of angels and of humans that
Saint Paul was talking about, is the language of love. The love that underlies
all things, and is perhaps easiest for us to know in silence, comes from God.
We might even say that love does not just come from God, it is God. The love
that flows like a quiet breath from the maker of all things, that gives us
life, and fills our hearts, is God at work.
We can see God at work, here and now, in the lives of
Jacquie and Markus, who have already learned to sit together in silence. Thanks
be to God. Amen
