Introduction: So You're Getting Married! Hello, and congratulations on your upcoming marriage! What a glorious, life-affirming choice that is, one that must fill you with hope and excitement. Now that the big decision has been made, your attention has naturally turned to planning your wedding, which includes the ceremony.
As an interfaith minister, I have been privileged to officiate at hundreds of wedding ceremonies, for couples coming from an amazing variety of backgrounds. Interacting with people of so many cultures, colors, and creeds has enriched me -- for this is work that makes the spirit soar and the heart sing! These couples have inspired me. What I often refer to as a sacred walking with these couples during the preparation and celebration of their weddings forms the soul of this book.
It is my hope that Joining Hands and Hearts will help you create the wedding ceremony of your dreams and perhaps beyond what you have imagined -- one that will resonate within you throughout your married lives. This book offers an inclusive, embracing approach, one rooted in and permeated by the same essence that brought you together -- love. And if yours is an interfaith, intercultural, or interracial union, then your love doesn't know the boundaries of color, creed, or nationality. I cannot think of anything more beautiful.
Our world is becoming smaller by the minute. Advances in technology and communications, changes in the way we work, the ability to travel anywhere -- all have created what is truly a global village. People from all countries interact with one another to an ever-increasing extent. Inevitably, individuals of different faiths, backgrounds, and cultures meet, get to know one another, fall in love, decide to marry. There is no doubt: intermarriage is on the rise. Here are some statistics:
In the United States alone, 5 million people are married each year.
Over 40 percent of marriage-age Catholics marry outside the Church, a doubling since the 1960s. Marriages between Catholics and Protestants, once frowned upon, are now accepted by the vast majority of those faiths.
Three in ten Mormons are now in interfaith marriages, although they are encouraged by their church to marry within their faith.
One in three Episcopalians and one in four Lutherans have married outside their churches.
The Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America reports that two-thirds of its sanctioned marriages are interfaith.
The number of Jewish-Christian couples doubled to one million during the 1990s.
Four in ten Muslims, whose religion allows men but not women to intermarry, have chosen non-Muslim spouses.
The intermarriage rate approaches 60 percent for Buddhists, the fastest-growing Eastern religion in the United States.
How do all these "mixed matches" get married? Increasingly, couples who wish their wedding day to be one of harmony, spirituality, and celebration are discovering the interfaith ceremony. It is a bridge. The great strength of the interfaith ceremony is that it is inclusive. If done correctly, it is an enlightening and enriching experience. Each ceremony contains its particular brand of magic, and all involved come away feeling honored and celebrated. No one feels alienated or offended. One family is not more important than the other. The interfaith ceremony is like a sacred dance that goes back and forth, celebrating each tradition in joy, making room so that everyone feels richer and expanded.
I often tell couples that my job is to serve them and their families with the utmost caring and devotion. Joining Hands and Hearts is here to serve you, to suggest possibilities and solutions. There is no agenda, religious or otherwise. We all participate in the sacred. The solutions, in the broadest sense, are not about conciliation and giving in but about learning, understanding, respecting, and always making the circle wider. That is what creates a memorable interfaith wedding ceremony. And that is what makes for a successful interfaith or intercultural marriage, one in which the love will continue to grow stronger, deeper, and greater.
* * * Joining Hands and Hearts will serve as your guide to designing a wedding tailored to both of your needs and wishes; it will lead you through the steps of planning a ceremony that is uniquely yours. A ceremony involves not only your beliefs but those of both your families. It has to do not only with religion but also with cultural and personal elements of significance to you.
Part I includes an introduction to interfaith; a questionnaire to help you identify, express, and focus your feelings, thoughts, and needs; practical considerations to bear in mind as you begin thinking about your wedding ceremony; a discussion of family matters to help you deal with issues as the planning process goes on; and the outline of a core interfaith ceremony, which you may use as a blueprint for your own wedding.
In Part II, you will find the manual, which begins with a description of general traditions and includes a selection of universal words. These pages provide a sourcebook of passages that correspond to the several stages of the ceremony -- readings, prayers, vows, blessings. They are words that speak to all hearts. And they can be incorporated into almost any wedding ceremony. Next you will find an overview of the religions of the world and their marriage ceremonies, adapted for an interfaith service. We have taken traditional elements from various ceremonies and presented them in a universal context, so that each is appropriate for an interfaith assembly. You will find the symbolism and meaning of each ritual and element explained.
When I meet with an engaged couple to talk about their wedding, sometimes one or both are not very knowledgeable about their own religious or cultural traditions, and often they know very little about their partners'. I would suggest to you, as I do to the couples I work with, read about each other's religions and cultures. Be willing to learn from each other. The wedding is one day -- a wonderful, transforming, unforgettable day, but just a day within a lifetime of days. Every interfaith couple should enter marriage with eyes and hearts wide open, and know as much as they can about each other's religion, culture, and family heritage. Inevitably, there will be adjustments to come. But to marry in ignorance, or with the notion that any compromises can be worked out later, is troublesome.
This manual will help get you started. For each religion, I offer a brief explanation of the basic tenets and the spiritual essence that have provided comfort and sustenance to so many people over centuries. It is my hope to give you a glimmer of the light that illuminates each tradition. Unfamiliar doctrine may sound strange or uncomfortable, and may separate and divide. But the teachings of the founders of the world's great religions -- the words of Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, Lao Tzu, Buddha -- are essentially universal. All religions and spiritual paths originate from and lead to the same place -- love.
As an interfaith minister (who grew up in a traditional Catholic family), I find that the more I learn, including from all the couples I have worked with over the years, the bigger I become inside. Through my exposure to the various traditions, they have become somehow part of me. I have discovered that in some way I am Christian, I am Jewish, I am Muslim, I am Hindu, I am Buddhist, I am Taoist, I am Sufi, I am Native American, I am African-American. I am one with the beauty and wisdom of all faiths and cultures. God is called by many names. Perhaps as you and your partner learn from each other, you too will find yourself growing in appreciation of each other's theologies, cosmologies, and belief systems. And from this exposure you too will become bigger, richer inside. You or your partner may have spiritual inclinations toward traditions other than the ones you were raised with, and this book will serve you in that regard as well.
The next section of the manual lists wedding rituals and customs from around the world. Many couples wish to celebrate their cultural roots. In these pages, you will read about customs you might find appealing and appropriate for your wedding (the African-American jumping of the broom, for example, or the Spanish and Mexican exchange of coins), what they mean and how they can be incorporated and explained in a ceremony.
Finally, many of the couples whose ceremonies I have conducted have graciously allowed me to tell their stories. These are tender, delightful, and romantic stories -- about how the couples met and fell in love, the obstacles they overcame, their spiritual paths, the choices they made, and the weddings that, together, we designed. Standing in the presence of their love, one cannot help but be sprinkled with their stardust. From their love stories (which are interspersed throughout the book) and sample ceremonies (which are presented in Part III), you may gather any number of suggestions or creative solutions for your own wedding. I hope their stories will not only describe how, when, and where particular elements can be incorporated but also spark ideas on how to unite your family and guests in a oneness of spirit and, especially, how to achieve the balance that is the hallmark of an interfaith service. Perhaps you may even see a bit of yourselves in these brides and grooms.
As you read the ceremonies that we describe in Joining Hands and Hearts, it may be apparent to you that one has a more Jewish slant, another a more Christian slant, or whatever the interfaith combination may be. These are decisions the bride and groom have made. It was the couples themselves who chose the rituals, prayers, and blessings for their weddings. There may be any number of reasons for their choices: Perhaps the bride feels more deeply committed to her religious heritage than the groom does to his and he is happy to accommodate her wishes; perhaps his family and guests come from a more traditional environment, and the couple h...
