Back from Maine

And as usual, God's hopes and plans were bigger than mine

Whitney and Graham outside St. Ann’s Episcopal Church in Kennebunkport. The wedding took place in the church’s open-air chapel by the sea, but the church itself was a place of quiet and holy respite before and after. “Come to me…”

I’ve just returned from Maine, where our son, Graham, and our daughter-in-law, Whitney, were married last weekend.  I don’t have words for the experience yet, and maybe I never will.  But I do have a few good pictures, and my daughter-in-law said I could post whatever I liked. She’s pretty fabulous.

Although Contemplative Chapel is devoted to cultivating and nurturing contemplative practice, I might occasionally post something personal like this.  Based on what I experience in our silent gatherings, my intuition tells me that you will receive this generously.

Cherry and I on our way to the wedding

As I said in an article that I wrote for the cathedral here in Houston, children generally want to please their parents, so they often struggle to make their lives conform to our hopes and expectations.  But if we release our children from the constraints of our hopes and our vision of who they should become, and we encourage them instead to listen for God’s voice in their hearts, then something truly miraculous can happen.

We might discover that our hopes were too small, that God had far greater things in mind. 

Our daughter, Caroline (left), loves her two brothers. She offered a toast to Graham that brought me to tears. But she’s always wanted a sister. Now she has one, and she had no idea it would be this good.

Little did Caroline know, however, that when Graham and Whitney decided to marry, she would hit the jackpot. Whitney has 5 sisters and no brothers.

That’s been my experience, anyway, and this is the truth that I have felt for decades now about each of our children – that I didn’t know it was possible to ask God for a child this wonderful.  Now, I am overwhelmed with joy feeling the exact same way about our daughter-in-law.  She’s that amazing.  What God had in mind far exceeded what we could have asked for.

Whitney and Graham at the fabulous reception. Our oldest, Garrison, is on the far right. Like his sister’s, Garrison’s toast to Graham and Whitney was a beautiful, holy moment for Cherry and me.

Now, I’m aware that these pictures depict a pretty spectacular celebration. It was a privilege, and all so beautifully planned by our incredible in-laws. Cherry and I could not be more grateful to them for their extraordinary hospitality. But for all of us, our deepest wonder and gratitude is about something that we know is interior and indelible; it’s something we all feel about Whitney and Graham, and something we’re sure they know deep inside themselves, quite apart from the beautiful circumstances of their wedding day. 

So, while I’m grateful for the beauty that these pictures depict, I’m mindful of an even greater, invisible reality here. When the Lord was guiding Samuel concerning whom Samuel should anoint as King, he told Samuel not to look on appearances.  “Human beings look at outward appearance,” God said, “but the Lord looks at the heart.” (Still, I’m enjoying looking on appearances, knowing the spiritual reality that is behind it all.)

In a way, contemplative practice is about this very thing: looking deeper and letting go of what we seek or what we think we know is most important, so that something far greater can be revealed. 

This picture of Whitney and Graham was taken a couple of days before the wedding. It’s typical of them. I’ve often said that God probably marries people well before the church ceremony. In the marriage service, we’re often just confirming something that God did a long time ago. That’s been my feeling about these two all along.