Dearly Beloved...

...thank you for coming here today to witness as we become one.

Rumi asks, "who finds us here, circling bewildered, like atoms?" he points to our existence as individuals, as humans and birds and stars, and recognizes that together, we are god. that glory is our inner reality, the outer being a kind of language that explains that.

"love is the religion, the universe is the book."

what we have found in each other is a passion for experiencing both the inner glory and the outer language of being alive. by coming together here before you now, our familiar divinity, we are giving ourselves to one another and to this passion for the rest of our lives.

when Kristie and I found each other, we sought words to describe what it felt like. it was she who found Rumi, and one night she read to me:

"as Rumi was riding through the marketplace, surrounded by a knot of disciples, a stranger with piercing eyes stepped from a doorway and seized his bridle. the stranger challenged him with a question.

we cannot be entirely certain what the question was, but as Rumi was about to reply, he realized he had come face to face with the Mystery. a doorway to eternity flickered open...

and in one pure outrageous act of faith, Rumi dove through. in an instant of mystical annihilation, fire met fire, ocean ocean, and Rumi fell into pure being.

to the outside world, it is only recorded that, at Shams' question, Rumi tumbled to the ground, unconscious.

later he would say, 'what I first thought of as god, I met today as a human being.'

Shams and Rumi began a series of months-long retreats into solitude where they entered into a deep communion of words and silence called sohbet. who can say what transpired there?"

this is to be in part a Quaker service. in the Quaker faith there are no ministers as it is believed that no one is closer to god than anyone else. the worship that takes place is a gathering of people of faith, who sit together in silence, speaking if and when they are moved to do so.

paraphrased from a Quaker reader: "in silence, without rite or symbol, we have known divinity so convincingly present in our quiet meetings, that grace dispels our faithlessness, our unwillingness, our fears, and sets our hearts aflame with the joy of adoration."

in a moment, Kristie and Jim will exchange their vows. after the vows there will be music, and then silence. within this silence anyone is welcome to give voice to prayer or messages to the couple. Jim and Kristie will end the period of silence and sharing by standing and exchanging rings.

through loving you, I feel like I'm just beginning to understand love. always just beginning.

I bring to you all that I am, and as we learn and grow together, all that I will be.

as one, we will move through words, I vow to listen to you with the ears of my heart, and to speak with my heart's truth

as one, we will move through hurt, I vow to completely unravel before you, and to hold you faithfully when you unravel before me

as one, we will move through expression, I vow to explore with you the shared universe of galaxies that were created by our merging, to occupy these wordless places, and to build with you ways to share them with the world

as one, we will move through space, I vow to revel in the world reflected in your eyes, to see what you will show me, and to show you what I have seen

as one, we will move through time, I vow to remind you that every moment is an opportunity for the extraordinary, to listen when you remind me when I get caught up in the mundane, and to hold the progression of our lives and love over all fleeting obligations

as one, we will move through life, I vow to share this earthly existence with you, to share in sickness and health, weakness and strength, uncertainty and faith; to share the boundless passion of being alive as fully and completely as two bodies with one spirit can.

from this moment forward, I take our marriage as my highest honor, my greatest challenge, and my sacred duty. that I may be your husband and keep you as my wife, forever.

there is a photo on your website of the earthquake shattered freeway ramp in front of Electric Minds. the road leads skyward, ends in mid-air. the road loops from the foreground of the image to the top, and is framed in such a way that the image is mostly sky. there is very little actual freeway in the photograph. for me, this makes the image all the more powerful. it puts me under the freeway without really showing me the freeway. there is this enormous implied road which is all the more real than a photo of the road itself would be, because by giving me the sky and a hint of the freeway, the image forces me to create my freeway myself.

I have no words with which to speak the sky, or the freeway, just as I cannot speak to you with words why it is that you are unlike everyone else in the universe to me. the best I can do today is to be the finger you love to invoke, the one which points to the dog which is barking at the moon.

what I love about the moon is the awareness it creates of the sky. the that the photograph reveals the freeway by hinting at it, the way the freeway reveals the sky.

these words can only point toward the way you are my sky.

as a little girl I loved to think of infinity or forever. I would picture the sky and follow it out through the solar system, and further. I would think: "so it goes on and on and on and on..."

you have shown me the sky all over again, and I am here today to say forever to my sky. to you.

it is the craziest, bravest, most grandiose and humble thing I have ever done.

from this moment forward, I take our marriage as my highest honor, my greatest challenge, and my sacred duty. that I may be your wife and keep you as my husband. forever.

(here, some of our favorite people stood and said things that made us cry. you made our wedding. thank you.)

will you be my wife?

yes!

will you be my husband?

yes!

if you, the beloved family of James Hart and Kristie Haag, affirm that you have witnessed and sanctify this marriage, please answer with a resounding yes!

(they did)

Jim, will you kiss the bride?

(we kissed)

welcome Home.

10 years
August 11, 2009
Hartford Street, San Francisco, California

A few days after we stood in front of you like this last time I was neck deep in the Pacific Ocean. I had just realized that the silver ring that bound me to the wild creature playing at the water’s edge was no longer on my hand. We had designed the rings ourselves, had driven to Santa Barbara to have them made before our eyes from a single piece of silver by a dear friends, and they perfectly captured the oneness we felt for each other. Those desperate moments I spent searching the ocean for that tiny silver ring were some of the closest to madness I’ve ever felt. You finally talked me out of the water, and at the shore you took your perfect copy of my lost treasure off your finger and threw it in a high, wide arc into the Pacific, so it could join mine, and they could spend eternity together.

That was when I understood what marriage was. That was when I understood that what the books call compromise is something else entirely -- a wholly spontaneous instant in which my truest heart and your truest heart set aside everything ephemeral and from the bewildering choice of possible paths before us, there is only this road that you and I are walking together.

I will be an honest navigator of that road, even when I’m neck deep, this is my vow to you.

That unfettered honesty had defined the geography of our lives for the past ten years: the work we do, the friends and lovers we have, and the communities we help build. It has allowed us to inhabit a brave, shameless land where we are entirely ourselves with each other, and from that place, are able to manifest ourselves truly in the world.

I will hold that place above all others, redefining its boundaries as we change and grow, this is my vow to you.

That knowing and being known, seeing and being seen, that is what makes us shine. All of you see how she shines. That shine is my light, the sun I rise to each morning, and the star that guides me through the night.

I will see your shine through all darkness, and be a beacon to you, that is my vow to you.

Seeing you and knowing you, this truly is my favorite part of being alive. I love all the people that you are, the 19th century Parisian princess, pragmatically ethereal healing arts ninja, squirmy little animal, my equal partner, my doe, my little girl. The way that in all of these forms you turn fear into fearlessness, confusion into clarity, fumbling into grace, such grace, as we go through our days is my greatest inspiration.

This constant evolution and its opposite, the ceaseless certainty of your love, your respect, and your passion is the foundation that my home is built upon, now and forever, this is my vow to you.