CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter
I probably said a unique word of thanksgiving last year. I doubt that any other thanks-giver said this particular word. I probably should have said it before, but I never thought of it until we watched “All Creatures Great and Small” on PBS, the Christmas one where Helen Alderson backs out of her wedding to Hugh Helton. In the church! In front of everybody!
So I said, “Oh, Lord, I’m so thankful I never had that happen in a wedding.” Because I know that it does happen. Some of my friends have real horror stories to tell, like the groom, who when Miley Palmer said, “Do you take this woman to be your wife?” thought for a minute and then said, “No, I don’t think so.”
As we watched PBS, Helen Alderson sitting in the church, all by herself, in her gown, waiting for everybody to go home because she’s too embarrassed to be seen, Helen [my Helen] said, “I’m proud of her.” Which worries me a little, what with the name the same, and all. But I also give thanks that not all Helens do that.
The closest I came was the wedding of Chinese mathematics graduate students. I tried to be accommodating, knowing we had some cultural differences. But they weren’t interested in putting anything “Chinese” into the service. They were getting married in America, and they were going to have an American wedding, by Uncle Sam! The bride had even gone to J.C. Penney’s and bought a very pretty, very traditional [American traditional] white dress.
It was a “formal” wedding, meaning the groom and best man were in tuxes, and I was in a robe, and the twenty or so guests were all dressed up. It was a small wedding. They hadn’t been in America for very long and didn’t know many people here. There were a few fellow graduate students, but attenders were mostly the mathematics faculty and spouses. We were in the chapel, not the sanctuary.
The groom and best man and I got into position. The maid of honor, also in a J.C. Penney’s dress, walked down the aisle. The chapel doors were open. We waited for the bride, who, having no one to “give her away,” would be walking in by herself.
We waited. And waited. And waited some more. The organist had been through all his music and was starting to improvise. His arms were beginning to droop. Everybody was getting antsy. I had just decided I would have to go looking for her when a faculty wife got up to do it. Thank goodness. The poor bride just hadn’t gotten her cue right. The faculty wife would tell her she could come in now.
But she didn’t. We waited some more. The organist drooped some more. Then finally she appeared in the doors. With the faculty wife behind her, literally pushing her, step by step, down the aisle. Tears streaming down her face! No sobs or shakes, but enough tears to raise the Titanic.
I surmised what had happened. A wedding is such a big deal in Chinese culture. She had thought it didn’t matter, that she was getting married away from “home.” But now, all of a sudden, on the most important day of her life, she was in a J.C. Penney’s dress, in a land on the other side of the globe. She had just been overcome.
I couldn’t be sure, though, because she couldn’t talk. With all the crying, her throat had closed up. I couldn’t continue if she had changed her mind. After all, she hadn’t exactly come in on her own. So, finally I said, as the intended groom looked on anxiously, “If you still wish to get married today, nod your head.” She nodded.
So I improvised the vows, the part where bride and groom have to talk. I read them from The Book of Worship, just like they were printed there: “Will you have this man/woman to be your husband/wife? If so, nod your head.”
There is an epilogue to this story, but I’m over-words, so it will have to wait ‘til later. For now, I’m just going to say thanks, again, that I never had to deal with a bride or groom who walked out of a wedding.
John Robert McFarland
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