Wedding thoughts.    -  James and Amy 18[th] June 2011

Hail Thee Festival Day !    Anniversary of the Battle of Waterloo and the General Election of 1970. 
The first day of the rest of your lives. 
Bringing  together 2 people, united by Christian Faith, and values in their lives.  
I'm MSBB  -   a retired Whitehall Civil Servant  who spent with Chrystal some 28 years living abroad drinking for the Queen  - in Japan, as a student of its language,  a diplomat and a businessman,  in the USA and in Malaysia.  A sort of Jack of all trades.   I think I may be the only man alive who worked for 5 British ambassadors in Washington , and by chance introduced  Elizabeth Taylor to John Warner who became  her sixth husband.     The apogee of my vainglorious diplomatic career. 
As in so many other ways,  our experiences in Japan  have been among the most formative in our lives.
My first Japanese wedding a message to short,  second   -  on 17th.  Steak, crayfish and musk melon.  
Then Michan's wedding arriving late.  I knew that when the chips were down I could mangle the grammar.  
Vacuum cleaner behind our seats at the reception. 
I retired from all that in 1998.  Wondered what to do.  Prison Fellowship.   Radio programme.  So I asked in my prayers for guidance of how best to use such experience as I had for the benefit of others.  I got my answer in the form of introductions  -  some unorthodox  -  to various people. 
James walked into my life.   We did a lot of things together  and amusing adventures.  Talk of Christianity.  What goes on in my breast is entirely suppressed....................
God's love for us and his plans for our lives.   James's Christianity and the influence of Amy and others.  The Baptism etc. 
In an age when too many people regard marriage as something to slip into easily, or out of when the going gets rough, for Christians  it is  surely something special and enduring.   The marriage at Cana
The importance of the marriage vows.  No gardening. 
Can't say I've never had an argument with my wife  -  indeed I've never been a candidate for the Dunmow Flitch of bacon to be awarded- as you may know  -  to the couple who have not had a tiff in 12 months  and a day and so I've never as they say  brought home the bacon.      But we are staring a Golden wedding in the face : 
And I have served  8, 215 cups of early morning tea  while Chrystal has picked my paper handkerchiefs out of the washing machine  287 times -  so you have some way to go before you beat that  record of achievement. 
 We have a friend who helps us fortnightly in our battle to keep our cottage clean .  She went to Ascot last week.  That reminded me.  "Most  people when they read that The Queen walked on the slopes......
 Have imagined that too much thought and prominence were given to little things, but they are in error.... 
Marriage has a special place in our culture.   And we have some other spectacular precedents for today..  At the end of April most of us watched the Royal Wedding.
" The women  -  one half of the human race at least  -  care 50 times more for a marriage than a ministry............A princely marriage is the brilliant edition of a universal fact and, as such it rivets mankind............A Royal family sweetens politics by the seasonable addition of nice and pretty events, it introduces  irrelevant facts into government ,  but they are facts that speak to men's bosoms.  
So Amy and James I want to thank you for sweetening our lives with this nice and pretty event.  It takes our minds off the  humdrum day to day preoccupations of earning a living  or shopping at Sainsburys , or waiting for the plumber.    
But more than that a wedding gives us the opportunity to think of the vows we took ourselves, to look again at our own lives and to face the future of our relationship with renewed vigour and to make the best use of the time we have .
Time now. 
 Andrew Marvel's poem my favourite.
To His Coy Mistress.
Had we but world enough and time this coyness lady were no crime. 
.
  But at my back I always hear 
Time's winged chariot hurrying near;
And yonder all before us lie
Deserts of vast eternity.
Thy beauty shall no more be found,
Nor, in thy marble vault, shall sound
My echoing song; then worms shall try
That long preserv'd virginity,
And your quaint honour turn to dust,
And into ashes all my lust.
The grave's a fine and private place,
But none I think do there embrace.

 [  What my Dad used to say to his patients ] 

        Now therefore, while the youthful hue
Sits on thy skin like morning dew,
And while thy willing soul transpires
At every pore with instant fires,
Now let us sport us while we may;
And now, like am'rous birds of prey,
Rather at once our time devour,
Than languish in his slow-chapp'd power.
Let us roll all our strength, and all
Our sweetness, up into one ball;
And tear our pleasures with rough strife
Thorough the iron gates of life.
Thus, though we cannot make our sun
Stand still, yet we will make him run.
 Wishing you a long and happy married life.  Strong faith 


