My baby brother got married today! Jerome married Leanna on a beautiful day in Michigan. I wasn't able to go because my visa got denied. (Unsurprising but still fantastically disappointing. Anyway.)
Leanna’s grandfather officiated their wedding and they asked me to deliver the message after the scripture reading (1 Cor 13, the “love” passage).
I love how Jerome and Leanna were really intentional about including everyone near and far. This is so like them.
Sharing what I wrote to further celebrate their marriage from this side of the world.
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Hello, everyone! My name is Katrina, my family calls me Katinka. I am Jerome, and now Leanna's, Ate. Ate means older sister.
I'm coming to you from the Philippines and I am so sorry, I am unable to join you. But I am grateful that I was given a chance to speak and celebrate with all of you today.
If this isn't your first wedding, then I'm sure the piece of scripture read today will be familiar. I've heard that piece of scripture used in weddings, mostly, but if we look closely, it is a deliberate, clear, and unshakeable call to love—in all its forms. It does not tell us what love looks like, but what it does. What love compels us to do. What love empowers us to do.
Leanna tells me that perichoresis, rooted in Greek, is the dynamic, intimate union or mutual indwelling of the three persons of the Trinity: God the parent, God the child, and God the holy spirit. There is no better union than this. And there is no greater mystery than this. But, as Leanna puts it, it is "an exquisite dance of divine affection."
Here today, is another union just as blessed. A union between Jerome and Leanna. Also a union of family and friends. (And hopefully also a lot of dancing later.)
I've heard how unions are supposed to be the end of the self for the purpose of being one with the other. There is comfort, I suppose, in the thought of never having to be alone, of having a partner through life, but I invite us to think of union in the same way we view the mystery of the trinity. The divine dance of all three without the diminishing of the three distinct persons that grant us love, grace, and salvation.
In Filipino, the word for "other" is "kapwa". "Ka" is a prefix whose closest translation is "co". Someone you do things with, feel things with, and all that. "Pwa" or "puwang" refers to space.
In English, the word "other" connotes a separate entity, but in Filipino, we view our other as some who is part of our selves. Someone who not only shares the same space, but someone who shares the same hopes, dreams, anguish, delight, victories. That, I think, is what today is. A recognition of kapwa in love.
In Zimbabwe, people greet each other everyday like this:
Mangwanani: ‘Good morning’Wamuka sei?: ‘How did you wake up?Ndamuka kana wamukawo: ‘I woke well if you woke up well.’
This is the essence of ubuntu: “I am because we are."
What do these Filipino and Shona iterations of union tell us? That we are nothing without the other? No. The love of others, the unification with others, does not negate the self. The community, the collective, is enhanced by each other person's uplifting of the other. I do not base my happiness on your happiness. I am happy if you are happy, while also believing and trusting that you are happy if I am happy. It is an edifying, symbiotic hope, belief, and trust that the same love that lifts me also lifts you.
You hear this, too, in Jesus' own words: the greatest commandment is to love others—your kapwa—as you love yourself.
This is the ongoing dance, the give and take, the twirls and dips, the taking of turns. This is love. This is the dance that God invites us to.
The world is a scary place now, but today, we have found love. We celebrate a union between two people that also shines a light on the union they've created with their community of friends and family. We celebrate the Others, we celebrate with the Othered. We celebrate the trinity that shows us what it's like to love without having to fully understand the mystery.
And whatever God invites into union in love, community of others, let no one put asunder.
