Owe it to the wind

I attended a wedding today at St. Lucy's Church in Campbell: My boss--one of my bosses, really--the president of the Steinway Society, Janie Horton, and her selected sweetie, Humberto Ramirez. Their story is unusual--this is Janie's third marriage (divorced hubby #1; hubby #2 died), and third wedding to Humberto (they had a civil service last year, followed by a family wedding in Chile). Apparently, they both didn't realize the amount of paperwork and processes they needed to complete for Janie to join the Catholic Church and annul her first marriage in order to exchange sacramental wedding vows, which was the ceremony they held today. So there were a lot of good natured jokes about her being "so very married" to Humberto that they are stuck with one another for good. They didn't look like they seemed to mind. [grin]

I've been inside a Catholic Church before, but I don't think I've ever attended a service. I was--only slightly--disconcerted by the moments when other people seemed to Know What Was Going On and I didn't. They've obviously been here before. [grin] Stuff like, when the priest says, "May the blessings of the Lord be with you," the audience replies, "And also with you." Not having been raised Catholic, this was new to me. There were other things, too. Like when the audience was supposed to take a minute or two to "express the love of Christ" and everyone went around shaking hands, even hugging and kissing, saying "Peace be with you." Again, not strange in a bad way, just unexpected and different.

Another thing I noticed was when they offered the Eucharist--the symbols of the wine and bread for the blood and body of Christ--they used a white wine. [???] I didn't get the chance to ask the priest about it, but I thought this was odd. I was always under the impression that the wine needed to be a red wine to fit the whole blood analogy. Curious.

So anyway, I'm sitting there while all this is going on, and it's a really beautiful church. Very modern with a wide arching ceiling and two huge stained glass windows on the left and the right. On the left is the depiction of the nativity and on the right is the crucifiction. And I began to wonder if they did this on purpose. I mean, I know the religious significance of these scenes, but taken down to their core meanings, we have Birth on one side and Death on the other, and here we sit, all of Life in between. I just found myself tapping into something far older and more universal than the merely Christian aspect they no doubt intended. It's times like this when I recognize that the Bible as Myth resonates far more deeply and more truly with our humanity when it can be linked to other traditions. But there, that must prove I'm a heretic. The angry mob with the torches and pitchforks should be arriving any moment.

Afterwards, I went outside for a closer look at the statue of St. Lucy. I asked my "other" boss Henry (VP) if he knew her story and he said he couldn't remember. See, if I was Catholic, I would get into all that stuff. Every saint has a story. But I'm not Catholic, so I guess I'll go back to reading critical theory and poetry and whatever else catches my fancy.

So Henry starts telling me about this song he's trying to remember, and he hums a few bars--and isn't it funny how a song stuck in someone else's head can get stuck in your head by only hearing a few notes?--so then it was stuck in my head, too. So there we stood, the three of us, me and Henry and Henry's wife Shirley, humming this song and trying to remember what it was. Thank god for the internet. I was able to come home and enter a few snatches of verse I could remember and I came up with this:


We're All Alone
~Rita Coolidge

Outside the rain begins and it may never end
So cry no more on the shore
A dream
Will take us out to sea
Forever more forever more
Close your eyes and dream
And you can be with me
'Neath the waves through the caves of hours
Long forgotten now
We're all alone we're all alone

Close the window calm the light
And it will be alright
No need to bother now
Let it out let it all begin
Learn how to pretend

Once a story's told
It can't help but grow old
Roses do lovers too
So cast your seasons to the wind
And hold me dear oh hold me dear

Close the window calm the light
And it will be alright
No need to bother now
Let it out let it all begin
All's forgotten now
We're all alone oh oh we're all alone
Close the window calm the light
And it will be alright
No need to bother now
Let it out let it all begin
All's forgotten now
We're all alone we're all alone
Let it out let it all begin
Owe it to the wind my love


Praise be to the internet gods. Now I can get some sleep...