Readings
Kahlil Gibran from "The Prophet"
You were born together, and together you shall be forever more.
You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.
Yes, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.
But let there be spaces in your togetherness.
And let the winds of heaven dance between you.
Love one another, but make not a bond of love.
Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.
Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.
Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but each one of you be alone
—even as the strings of a lute are alone though the quiver with the same music.
Give your hearts, but not in each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the Cyprus grow not in each other’s shadows.
...
Louis de Bernieres, from "Capital Corelli's Mandolin"
Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like
volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides you have to make a
decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined
together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because
this is what love is.
Love is not breathlessness, it is not
excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion.
That is just being in love, which any fool can do. Love itself is what
is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art
and a fortunate accident.
Those that truly love have roots
that grow towards each other underground, and, when all the pretty
blossoms have fallen from their branches, they find that they are one
tree and not two.
...
Adam Sandler, from "Wedding Singer"
"Grow Old With You"
I wanna make you smile whenever you're sad
Carry you around when your arthritis is bad
All I wanna do is grow old with you
I'll get your medicine when your tummy aches
Build you a fire if the furnace breaks
Oh it could be so nice, growing old with you
I'll miss you
Kiss you
Give you my coat when you are cold
Need you
Feed you
Even let ya hold the remote control
So let me do the dishes in our kitchen sink
Put you to bed if you've had too much to drink
I could be the man who grows old with you
I wanna grow old with you
Let’s Grow Old Together
Written by Spiritwind Wood
Let's sit underneath the open sky and watch the night just pass us by
let's me and you dream of the now and don't worry about tomorrow
you know we will make it somehow
Let us talk about our plan two lover's hand in hand
and let's grow old together
Let's let go of all the past all the tears and all the sorrow
let's dream through a desert so wide and vast slow down and not take life so fast
Let's let the sun shine down on you and me where we will always be forever
and let's grow old together
Let's stop and feel the wind blow through the canyon's of it's echo
ride with me through life and it's beauty two soul's bound to be free
Let's forget about days of yesterday start anew another day
never to look back into the never and let's grow old together.
...
Marriage Advice - Jane Wells (1886)
Let your love be stronger than your hate or anger.
Learn the wisdom of compromise,
for it is better to bend a little than to break.
Believe the best rather than the worst.
People have a way of living up or down to your opinion of them.
Remember that true friendship is the basis for any lasting relationship.
The person you choose to marry is deserving of the courtesies and kindnesses you bestow on your friends.
Please hand this down to your children and your children’s children.
...
"To Love is Not to Possess" - James Kavanaugh
To love is not to possess, to own or imprison,
Nor to lose one's self in another.
Love is to join and separate, to walk alone and together,
To find a laughing freedom that lonely isolation does not permit.
It is finally to be able to be who we really are
No longer clinging in childish dependency
Nor docilely living separate lives in silence,
It is to be perfectly one's self
And perfectly joined in permanent commitment
To another--and to one's inner self.
Love only endures when it moves like waves,
Receding and returning gently or passionately,
Or moving lovingly like the tide in the moon's own predictable harmony,
Because finally, despite a child's scars or an adult's deepest wounds,
They are openly free to be who they really are--and always secretly were,
In the very core of their being
Where true and lasting love can alone abide.
....
A Lovely Love Story, Edward Monkton.
The fierce Dinosaur was trapped inside his cage of ice. Although it was cold he was happy in there. It was, after all, HIS cage.
Then along came the Lovely Other Dinosaur.
The Lovely Other Dinosaur melted the Dinosaur’s cage with kind words and loving thoughts.
I like this Dinosaur, thought the Lovely Other Dinosaur. Although he is fierce he is also tender and he is funny. He is also quite clever though I will not tell him this for now.
I like this Lovely Other Dinosaur, thought the Dinosaur. She is beautiful and she is different and she smells so nice. She is also a free spirit, which is a quality I much admire in a dinosaur.
But he can be so distant and so peculiar at times, thought the Lovely Other Dinosaur.
He is also overly fond of Things. Are all Dinosaurs so overly fond of Things?
But her mind skips from here to there so quickly, thought the Dinosaur. She is also uncommonly keen on Shopping. Are all Lovely Other Dinosaurs so uncommonly keen on shopping?
I will forgive his peculiarity and his concern for Things, thought the Lovely Other Dinosaur. For they are part of what makes him a richly charactered individual.
I will forgive her skipping mind and her fondness for shopping, thought the Dinosaur. For she fills our life with beautiful thought and wonderful surprises. Besides, I am not unkeen on shopping either.
Now the Dinosaur and the Lovely Other Dinosaur are old. Look at them.
Together they stand on the hill telling each other stories and feeling the warmth of the sun on their backs.
And that, my friends, is how it is with love. Let us all be Dinosaurs and Lovely Other Dinosaurs together.
For the sun is warm. And the world is a beautiful place.
...
Extract from The Amber Spyglass
by Philip Pullman
“I will love you forever; whatever happens. Till I die and after I die, and when I find my way out of the land of the dead, I’ll drift about forever, all my atoms, till I find you again… I’ll be looking for you, every moment, every single moment. And when we do find each other again, we’ll cling together so tight that nothing and no one will ever tear us apart. Every atom of me and every atom of you… We’ll live in birds and flowers and dragonflies and pine trees and in clouds and in those little specks of light you see floating in sunbeams… And when they use our atoms to make new lives, they won’t just be able to take one, they’ll have to take two, one of you and one of me, we’ll be joined so tight…”
...
Extract from Wild Awake
by Hilary T. Smith
“People are like cities: We all have alleys and gardens and secret rooftops and places where daisies sprout between the sidewalk cracks, but most of the time all we let each other see is is a postcard glimpse of a skyline or a polished square. Love lets you find those hidden places in another person, even the ones they didn't know were there, even the ones they wouldn't have thought to call beautiful themselves.”
...
Extract from Les Misérables
by Victor Hugo
"You can give without loving, but you can never love without giving. The great acts of love are done by those who are habitually performing small acts of kindness. We pardon to the extent that we love. Love is knowing that even when you are alone, you will never be lonely again. And great happiness of life is the conviction that we are loved. Loved for ourselves. And even loved in spite of ourselves."
...
Love Relativity
by Albert Einstein
Gravitation cannot be held responsible for people falling in love.
How on earth can you explain in terms of chemistry and physics
so important a biological phenomenon as first love?
Put your hand on a stove for a minute and it seems like an hour.
Sit with that special girl for an hour and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.
...
I Like You
by Sandol Stoddard Warburg